Abstract
The Australian National Continence Management Strategy commissioned the implementation and evaluation of three community-based projects designed to improve care for people with incontinence by improving the detection and treatment of urinary incontinence. Projects were located in demographically diverse areas, overseen by co-operating professional groups with an interest in continence and aimed at facilitating a pathway of care for those with incontinence. Project activities focused on health care provider training and improving local referral networks, as well as raising public awareness. Multifaceted evaluation of each project was designed to inform principles for a national approach to continence care. The evaluation indicated that providers involved in each project became more confident in their ability to manage incontinence, had significantly increased knowledge of issues around incontinence and became more aware of local options for referral. However, there was little evidence that projects achieved an increase in seeking professional help among those with incontinence. From the evaluation, six principles were developed to guide future models of community-based continence care.
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Acknowledgements
This research was funded by the Australian Commonwealth Government’s then Department of Health and Aged Care (now the Department of Health and Aging). The research team would like to thank all project staff and health care providers who participated in the Continence Care in the Community Project (Western Australia), the Hunter Continence Awareness Project (New South Wales) and the North East Victorian Continence Care and Resource Demonstration Project.
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Editorial Comment: Understanding how public policy can influence both the provider practice and the patient care seeking behaviour in urinary incontinence is a very important, fascinating and timely topic. Numerous studies indicate that a minority of individuals with incontinence seek care from a health care provider and that many health care providers do not feel comfortable providing this care. Such characterisations are not limited to primary care. If we are to elevate the level of care that these patients receive, we must learn how to make care more accessible as well as more effective. This paper opens the door to the question of how to make care more accessible and we look forward to more like it
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Byles, J.E., Chiarelli, P., Hacker, A.H. et al. An evaluation of three community-based projects to improve care for incontinence. Int Urogynecol J 16, 29–38 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00192-004-1208-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00192-004-1208-y