Preliminary findings from the search for good practices

A project milestone has been achieved in the review, selection, and analysis of good practices. The INRCA team successfully led the completion of an ambitious literature review, identifying 242 promising practices internationally. This article provides a snapshot of the preliminary results of what is a pivotal piece of research for the WELL CARE project.

The current demographic transition will lead to an increasing number of people in need of long-term care (LTC), which will in turn call for a growing demand for LTC services and the availability of informal carers and care professionals. Against this backdrop, the European Commission launched the European Care Strategy in 2022 to ensure high-quality, affordable, and accessible care services across the European Union (EU). This initiative aims to improve the conditions for both formal and informal carers as well as for care recipients. Providing regular care activities can expose carers to the risk of experiencing high burden and developing mental health problems (e.g., anxiety, depression, burnout), risks that have been exacerbated by the Covid-19 outbreak. The WELL CARE project (https://wellcare-project.eu/) aims to enhance support for both informal carers and LTC workers, aiming to increase their resilience and mental wellbeing. The project contributes by identifying promising practices and innovative solutions across Europe, especially those fostering care partnerships between formal and informal carers.

Within Work Package (WP) 2 of the project, entitled “Review, Selection, and Analysis of Good Practices”, a Scientific Literature Review (SLR) and a Grey Literature Review (GLR) were conducted between January and September 2024. These reviews aimed to identify and analyse potential good practices currently implemented internationally (e.g., EU-27, United Kingdom, EFTA countries). Preliminary findings from the SLR and GLR identified interventions aimed at enhancing the mental wellbeing and resilience of informal carers and LTC workers, representing the current “state of the art” in European welfare models.

Both reviews highlighted that these practices primarily focus on informal carers, with fewer targeting LTC workers, and that care recipients involved are predominantly older people aged 65 years and over, often with cognitive or mental health issues. Few practices were found to enhance the mental resilience of both informal and formal carers. Moreover, several interventions are implemented outside healthcare facilities, with settings such as home and online becoming increasingly relevant, particularly during the Covid-19 pandemic.  Most practices identified are implemented at local and national levels, reflecting the challenges associated with scaling these practices due to economic constraints and the complexity of adapting them to diverse geographical and cultural contexts.

The SLR identified 139 articles published in a variety of peer-reviewed scientific journals. These articles mainly focus on interventions aimed at improving the mental wellbeing and resilience of the target groups, with a smaller number addressing organisational and management models and prevention strategies. Among the 139 practices described, 28 were found to contain elements that could foster care partnerships between informal and formal caregivers.

The GLR, based on an analysis of existing databases, websites, and repositories, identified 103 practices with the potential to support the resilience and mental wellbeing of informal carers and/or LTC workers. Half of these practices (52) were seen as having the potential to foster care partnerships (Figure 1). The data also highlighted the fragmented funding sources, which reduce the risk of sudden funding cuts but hinder the large-scale expansion of these initiatives. Approximately 40% of the practices identified in the GLR were deemed sustainable, scalable, and transferable, despite financial constraints and the challenges of adapting to diverse economic and cultural contexts.

Fig.1. Practices collected in the GLR by main outcomes (%)

The sustainability, scalability, and transferability of these practices require adequate grants, political support, and efficient, flexible supporting organisations. These preliminary findings underscore the need for further data analysis to refine future publications and guide the next steps of the WELL CARE project. In the coming months, the partnership will aim to identify and define, in collaboration with BLN members, inclusion criteria to assess which practices truly qualify as good practices. The most promising practices identified will be used for further project activities, including the development of general solution prototypes. These solutions will be implemented and tested with the support of various stakeholders across the five partner countries and at the EU level in subsequent project phases (WP3). The main results of the literature review will be presented in a publication that will be submitted to an international scientific journal in 2025.

Authors: Gabriele Morettini, Marco Socci, Maria Gabriella Melchiorre, Claire Champeix, Elizabeth Hanson