MedTrace Logo

Effectiveness of Post-Hospital Discharge Housing Counselling to Support Geriatric Patients in Staying At Home: a Pragmatic Randomised Controlled Trial

NCT06842719 · Status: NOT_YET_RECRUITING · Phase: NA · Type: INTERVENTIONAL · Enrollment: 200

Last updated 2025-02-24

No results posted yet for this study

Summary

Hospitalisation is often a disruptive event for older people, especially for geriatric patients with frailty. A critical factor for a successful return to one's own home is the living situation. Unfortunately, a large proportion of homes in Germany are not sufficiently accessible and often do no longer meet the needs of older residents with various health limitations. This can impair residents' functionality, increase the risk of falls, and restrict independence. Through timely housing advice and adaptation, including digital aids, more older people could be enabled to remain in their own homes with a high degree of safety despite their limitations ("Aging in Place").

Whilst long-term care insurance provide funding for home environment improvements, this is often not utilised, in part due to a lack of advice. The effectiveness of housing counselling in stabilising the functional level of geriatric patients after hospital discharge and in preventing negative outcomes such as rehospitalisation, falls, nursing home placement or death has not been sufficiently investigated in the German health and social care system. The few available studies show that interventions related to the home environment can have positive effects on activities of daily living, fall risk and mental health. As the functional abilities of older patients are usually worse at the time of discharge than before hospitalisation, this is a good time to assess the home environment and the person-environment fit.

Integrating professional housing counselling into discharge management could make a significant contribution to increasing safety in the home environment, improving self-help skills and preventing falls and re-hospitalisation. This could improve quality of life and reduce the burden on the healthcare system. The Frail@Home trial is a single-centre, randomised, controlled pragmatic trial (RCT) to test whether housing counselling provided within two to four weeks of hospital discharge increases the chances of older people remaining in their familiar home environment. The intervention group will receive on-site housing counseling, while the control group will receive standard care plus an additional information booklet from the local housing counseling service. The primary endpoint of the study is the number of days spent at home (DSH) in the first 6 and 12 months after discharge from acute geriatric care. The follow-up period will be 12 months. If successful, this study will be the first to show, using RCT methods, that early housing counselling after hospital discharge supports the retention of geriatric patients in their familiar homes.

Conditions

  • Frailty Syndrome

Interventions

PROCEDURE

on-site housing counseling

on-site housing counseling by a certified housing counseling expert

Sponsors & Collaborators

  • Maximilian König

    lead OTHER

Study Design

Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
PREVENTION
Masking
NONE
Model
PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age
70 Years
Sex
ALL
Healthy Volunteers
No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start
2025-03-01
Primary Completion
2026-07-01
Completion
2026-08-01

More Related Trials

Read the full study record

This page highlights key information. For complete eligibility criteria, study locations, investigator contacts, and the full protocol, visit the original record on ClinicalTrials.gov.

View NCT06842719 on ClinicalTrials.gov