Leader: Guendalina Graffigna (UNICATT); Other collaborator(s):
We will first perform an online survey generally aimed at developing a classification system of health engagement profiles for each target of the project (i.e., patients and caregivers). This will contribute to assessing and clustering individuals according to their health engagement profile and unmet support needs, to be addressed by personalized educational strategies. Informed by the Patient Health Engagement Model, a Personalized Health Engagement Educational Package will be designed and first piloted to provide a strategic approach to improving patient and caregivers’ health and quality of life through promoting their engagement in the healthy aging process.
Brief description of the activities and of the intermediate results
The repeated measures study has been approved by the local Ethics Committee. We have issued a call for recruiting agencies to recruit the proper sample. Three agencies have responded to this call, and the selection is proceeding. As soon as the selection process terminates, the approved protocol will be applied, and data will be collected. This activity shares common methods across tasks 6.1, 6.2, and 6.4. The intervention study, dealing with testing an engagement protocol for older adults and caregivers, will soon be submitted to the local Ethics Committee. All key personnel have been recruited, including a senior and a junior postdoc.
The WP dedicated to the engagement of the elderly and their caregivers is working on an initial psychological segmentation of engagement profiles of the elderly through the administration of a questionnaire composed of validated scales (including the Engagement in Healthy Ageing Promotion Scale (Menichetti et al., 2018)) and ad hoc items. The questionnaire was administered to a representative sample of 2,010 Italian elderly individuals to profile them in terms of habits, quality of life, and relationship with the caregiver. The profiles obtained will then serve as a basis for the administration of personalized educational interventions to promote the involvement of the elderly in their health and healthy lifestyles.