In-home preventive health assessment and telephone case management for over 75s living alone in independent living units: A cluster randomised controlled trial.

The study followed the health outcomes of 124 Independent Living Unit residents aged 75 years or over and living alone to see if health assessments and early basic interventions had an impact on their health and well being. If required, interventions included health information, specialist referrals, and home help. Residents were linked to a community nurse, who provided low intensity case management by phone every three months. Half of the participants participated in the early intervention experimental model, while the remainder received their usual community care. At the end of the 12 month study period, those involved in the experiment had a higher level of satisfaction with community care, but more time was needed to see if there were other detectable health outcomes. We found previously unidentified needs among 66% of the experimental group, and throughout the course of the study most of those needs were resolved. However, no other benefits from the program were detected after one year in terms of health perception, functional ability, psychosocial status, health resource utilisation and mortality. This was consistent with many other similar studies.