SABD-Fam

Background

In Germany, most people with dementia live at home and are supported and cared for by informal (family) carers. Informal carers are required to constantly adapt care to the changing needs of the person living with dementia (and to their own needs) in order to stabilize the home-based care arrangement in the long term. As part of the National Dementia Strategy (Measure 2.8.2), a pilot project was implemented to develop and implement a low-threshold, multi-professional intervention to support informal carers and stabilize home-based care arrangements for people living with dementia.

Project aims

In this pilot project, funded by Malteser Hilfsdienst e.V. and Veronika Stiftung, the Ludwigshafen University of Business and Society (Head: Dr. Doris Arnold) used a participatory research design to test the new interdisciplinary care concept of “Specialized outpatient care for people living with dementia and their families” (SABD-Fam). The core of the intervention was the continuous support of people living with dementia and their families by scientifically trained dementia consultants and the implementation of case conferences in interdisciplinary dementia teams. The DZNE care structures working group in Witten (Head: Dr. Bernhard Holle) was responsible for the process evaluation in the project. This aimed to describe the complexity of the SABD-Fam intervention, to identify factors that promote and hinder implementation and to generate initial findings on the mechanisms of action of the intervention.

Methods

In the first phase of the project, the SABD-Fam intervention was developed and adapted to the context of a dementia service and an outpatient care service of the Malteser. The task of the process evaluation was to describe the intervention in detail within the framework of a logical model that presented the necessary resources, planned activities and the short, medium and long-term goals of the intervention. In the subsequent implementation phase, the SABD-Fam intervention was tested in the various Malteser settings and continuously adapted. In this phase, the process evaluation documented the adaptation of the intervention and its reasons and identifies factors that promoted and hindered implementation. It also showed how people living with dementia and their informal carers were reached and how both – they and the professionals involved – experienced and evaluated the SABD-Fam intervention and its implementation. This was done by means of document analyses, interviews with experts, focus group interviews, secondary analysis of the interviews conducted with informal carers and people living with dementia in the implementation project and a by a satisfaction survey of users.

Results

As part of the process evaluation, a logic model was developed and further refined to provide a detailed description of the intervention’s key resources, activities, and short-, medium-, and long-term objectives. In addition, facilitating and hindering factors influencing implementation were identified. The process evaluation also generated initial evidence on intervention effects, particularly with regard to the role of continuous support, interdisciplinary case conferences and regional networking structures.

These findings were consolidated in a final scientific report and offer important recommendations for integrating SABD-Fam into routine care. Overall, the project successfully contributed to relieving the burden on informal caregivers and to stabilizing home-based care arrangements.

The project is affiliated with the “Stability of Care Arrangements” (SoCA) research line at the DZNE site in Witten, which investigates the complex phenomenon of stability in home-based care arrangements and aims, in the long term, to support the development of care interventions and care structures that promote stability.

Project Website

https://www.malteser-ellwangen.de/sabd-fam.html

Publications

Final report (PDF) in German language

Executive Summary (PDF) in German language

Conference oral presentations:

Malek, M., Köhler, K., Arnold, D., & Holle, B. (2025, Mai). Enhancing interprofessionalcollaboration in dementia care: Insights from the SABD-Fam Project. 4th International Conference of the German Society of Nursing Science, Berlin, Deutschland.

Malek, M., Köhler, K., Arnold, D., Basteck, N., & Holle, B. (2025, September). Spezialisierte Begleitung in der häuslichen Demenzversorgung: Prozessevaluation des SABDFam-Projekts. Deutscher Kongress für Versorgungsforschung (DKVF), Hamburg, Deutschland.

Poster presentations:

Malek, M., Köhler, K., & Holle, B. (2024, Oktober). Prozessevaluation des Modellprojekts SABD-Fam zur Unterstützung von Menschen mit Demenz und ihren Familien. Universitätsweiter Tag der Forschung, Universität Witten/Herdecke, Witten.

Malek, M., Köhler, K., Arnold, D., Holle, B. (2025). Spezialisierte ambulante Begleitung in der häuslichen Demenzversorgung: Ergebnisse der Prozessevaluation des Modellprojekts SABD-Fam. Tag der Forschung. Witten, Universität Witten/Herdecke.   

Malek, M., Köhler, K., Arnold, D., Basteck, N., & Holle, B. (2025, Oktober). Specializedcare & support in home-based dementia care: Process evaluation of the SABD-Famproject. Alzheimer Europe Conference, Bologna, Italien.