PRAGRESS – Prevention and management of challenging and aggressive behaviour in long-term care elderly people

Improving capacity of nursing staff to face challenging care situations

Duration of the project

1.9.2020. – 30.9.2023

Source of funding

Erasmus+

Total funding

357 862 €

The PRAGRESS project aims to improve the capacity of care staff (nurses, social workers and community care workers) and home care professionals to deal with challenging and aggressive behaviour of older people, both in home care and in care homes.

Aggressive behaviour is a complex phenomenon that requires a clear educational framework. It includes the following elements:

• increasing general knowledge
• causes and prevention
• management and control through soothing speech.

Project measures include

The project will carry out a baseline study to identify critical factors. These form the overall context of challenging behaviour of older people towards home care and care home staff.

The training content aims to produce well-structured training material to help reduce challenging and aggressive behaviour in care homes.

The e-learning platform will be openly available to all care workers, organisations and other relevant stakeholders.

The pilots will be designed and used according to the training modules developed. They can be used to validate learning, acquire skills and transfer new skills learned into practice.

The project aims to

• improve the quality of life of the elderly in their care. By better understanding and analysing the dynamics of aggressive behaviour in older people, carers will be better able to face and resolve challenging everyday situations.
• improve the quality of life of care professionals. In particular, nurses working in long-term care facilities clearly experience both physical and psychological stress.
• develop better interaction between the carer and the person being cared for.
• updating the working methods and skills of care staff. This will allow a better response to verbal and physical aggression in order to ensure a safe and competent level of care in care institutions.

The impact of the project

• creating useful learning content to improve the quality and range of services and interventions available.
• care workers can have longer careers by increasing their skills, qualifications and knowledge. In addition, increasing the qualifications and skills of social care workers may increase their personal professional development, which will also support their future employment.
• Using the PRAGRESS e-learning platform can have a big impact on the skills levels of social and health professionals in a short time.
• creating new opportunities for cooperation between EU countries.
• producing new material on the social inclusion of older people, based on the experiences of different people and social organisations.