Prioritising Research through Engagement with older Adult Care Homes and potential for mapping to existing data sources: the PREACH study
- 1University of Hertfordshire
Abstract
BackgroundCare home research often fails to address issues that matter most to residents, families, and staff. Priority-setting exercises can help reduce this lack of inclusivity, but few have received significant resident responses.
ObjectivesTo identify research priorities of UK care home stakeholders (including residents; relatives; care staff, managers and owners; healthcare professionals; policymakers and researchers), and to assess whether these priorities can be addressed using existing research datasets.
MethodsPREACH was an 18-month research priority-setting study involving 1063 stakeholders, across 50 care homes, including 381 residents. Participants submitted ideas of what care home research should focus on through 1) care home activity sessions or 2) an online survey. Responses underwent content analysis to identify themes, and these themes were mapped against a national repository of care home trial data.
ResultsFifty-one themes were identified. The most frequent priority across all stakeholder groups was access to meaningful activities for residents (22%). Relatives and residents emphasised social connection and day-to-day experience, whereas staff more often highlighted system pressures. No stakeholder-prioritised topics were directly addressable using existing secondary datasets.
ConclusionsCollaboration with care home teams to reach large numbers of residents offers a practical route to producing more relevant and timely care home research. Care home stakeholders consistently prioritise quality of life, meaningful activity and staffing over disease-specific or health-focused research. Existing research datasets measure relatively few of the priorities identified by residents, highlighting the need for resident-centred outcome measures and data collection.
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BibTeX
@misc{irvine2026prioritising,
title = {{Prioritising Research through Engagement with older Adult Care Homes and potential for mapping to existing data sources: the PREACH study}},
author = {L. Irvine and K. Micklewright and B. Myles and M. Davies and A. Killett and C. Goodman and J. K. Burton},
howpublished = {medRxiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.64898/2026.10.01.26364274},
url = {https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.10.01.26364274v1},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Prioritising Research through Engagement with older Adult Care Homes and potential for mapping to existing data sources: the PREACH study
AU - L. Irvine
AU - K. Micklewright
AU - B. Myles
AU - M. Davies
AU - A. Killett
AU - C. Goodman
AU - J. K. Burton
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/01
PB - medRxiv
DO - 10.64898/2026.10.01.26364274
UR - https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.10.01.26364274v1
AB - BackgroundCare home research often fails to address issues that matter most to residents, families, and staff. Priority-setting exercises can help reduce this lack of inclusivity, but few have received significant resident responses. ObjectivesTo identify research priorities of UK care home stakeholders (including residents; relatives; care staff, managers and owners; healthcare professionals; policymakers and researchers), and to assess whether these priorities can be addressed using existing research datasets. MethodsPREACH was an 18-month research priority-setting study involving 1063 stakeholders, across 50 care homes, including 381 residents. Participants submitted ideas of what care home research should focus on through 1) care home activity sessions or 2) an online survey. Responses underwent content analysis to identify themes, and these themes were mapped against a national repository of care home trial data. ResultsFifty-one themes were identified. The most frequent priority across all stakeholder groups was access to meaningful activities for residents (22%). Relatives and residents emphasised social connection and day-to-day experience, whereas staff more often highlighted system pressures. No stakeholder-prioritised topics were directly addressable using existing secondary datasets. ConclusionsCollaboration with care home teams to reach large numbers of residents offers a practical route to producing more relevant and timely care home research. Care home stakeholders consistently prioritise quality of life, meaningful activity and staffing over disease-specific or health-focused research. Existing research datasets measure relatively few of the priorities identified by residents, highlighting the need for resident-centred outcome measures and data collection.
ER -