Survey of health and social-health services for people with dementia: methodology of the Italian national project.

Abstract

People with dementia have special assistance needs. Worldwide problem is to ensure access to quality health services. Our study supported by the Italian Ministry of Health reports methodology features of a large survey project conducted to identify and to collect information on health and social health services for people with dementia in Italy. Among all Italian regions, about two thousand services available to individuals with dementia disease and their caregivers were identified. These services included memory clinics, daycare centers and residential care facilities, totally or partially covered by the public healthcare service. A survey questionnaire was designed to collect information and a web-platform system was developed to manage data from all services. Of great importance, the web-platform is capable to display surveyed services as an on-line map regularly updated and easily accessible from the Dementia Observatory website (www.iss.it/demenza).