The REABLE-M study uses a mixed-methods approach which first involves a feasibility study where we will conduct research in 5 council areas to test a questionnaire on outcomes for participants and their carers, and explore whether councils are able to provide social care data to link to questionnaire data, and examine what are helps people to participate in the research.
Following that, we will delve into the models and experiences of reablement through two qualitative studies in the 5 areas:
- Looking at how reablement teams in the 5 sites are organised and what models are being used,
- Looking at experiences of reablement from different perspectives – people currently using reablement and their carers, community advocacy organisations representing groups of people who are most likely to use reablement, and groups who may have difficulties accessing or engaging with reablement.
This part of the study will run over 16 months.
If feasible, we will then proceed with a large-scale survey in 8 areas (5 previously and 3 newly recruited sites). We will survey people using different models of reablement collecting outcome measures from participants and linking these with care records data. We will investigate the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of the four models of reablement using a large dataset of outcomes collected from reablement users, linked to administrative care records from the areas.
The whole study will run over 36 months in total.