Impact of Hospital Virtual Dementia Tour® on Caregivers’ Knowledge and Attitudes Towards People with Dementia

The incidence of dementia, associated with poor health outcomes, is rapidly rising. In review of the literature, dementia education is broadly recommended to impact staff knowledge and patient outcomes. This Doctoral project sought to answer the project question: in healthcare workers who care for hospitalized patients with dementia and behavioral disturbance, will the dementia-centered education initiative, the Hospital Virtual Dementia Tour® (HVDT), improve the care team's knowledge and attitudes in caring for people with dementia, particularly behavioral dysregulation, as measured by scores on pre-post Dementia Attitudes Scale (DAS) Assessment? A quality improvement quantitative pretest posttest pilot study implementing the Hospital Virtual Dementia Tour was completed. There was a total of 71 participants with 55 participants’ data included in final analysis. Pearson’s correlation between demographics and pre-test DAS scores revealed no significant correlation between clinical role, years of experience, or prior dementia education. There was statistically significant improvement in total aggregate attitude scores (t-score = 1.962, p = 0.001) and knowledge aggregate scores (t-score = 1.964, p = 0.000). There was a non-statistically significant improvement in social comfort aggregate means (t-score = 1.964, p = 0.854). This pilot study demonstrated improvement in caregiver’s total aggregate attitude scores and knowledge specific scores following participation in the Hospital Virtual Dementia tour which supports future implementation of this intervention.