Authors: Ayumi Igarashi, Hiroshige Matsumoto, Manami Takaoka, Haruna Kugai, Miho Suzuki, Satoshi Murata, Hiromi Shimada, Tomoko Kubo, Tomoyuki Hiratsuka, Akio Yazawa, Noriko Yamamoto‐Mitani
Published: 2020-12-07
DOI: 10.1002/alz.039157
Source: Full article
AbstractBackgroundConvenience stores (CVSs), small retail chains that sell a variety of daily necessities ranging from sandwiches to shaving creams in a neighborhood, support older adults with dementia by providing them a convenient shopping place and meeting their small daily needs. Since 2017, we have conducted community‐based participatory research in Nerima City, Tokyo, to promote collaboration between CVSs and community healthcare/social care professionals and to strengthen the CVSs’ support function for community‐dwelling older adults. We evaluated the effect of our activities in the past 3 years.MethodsIn 2018, community support center (CSC) staff visited CVSs in the neighborhood to become acquainted with each other. Thereafter, the CSC staff continued to collaborate with CVSs in supporting older adults, such as by regularly asking the CVSs about difficulties in dealing with older customers. To evaluate these activities, every year from 2017 to 2019, we administered self‐report questionnaires to owners/managers of all convenience stores in Nerima City (intervention group) and two other cities (control group) in Tokyo. We analyzed the data using the difference‐in‐difference method.ResultsThe participants who completed the survey were 97 (valid response rate: 17.9%; n = 37 in Nerima vs. 60 in others) in 2017, 103 (19.2%; n = 50 vs. 53) in 2018, and 108 (17.9%; n = 52 vs. 56) in 2019. Altogether, the mean age (± standard deviation) was 46.9 (±13.0) years, and 77% were men; 56% were owners of the CVSs, and they had 17.1 (±7.2) staff in their stores. The analyses showed significant improvements in “experience of emergency protection for an older adult” (p = 0.03), “knowledge of the function of the CSC” (p = 0.001), “knowing individual healthcare/social care professionals in the CSC” (p = 0.02), and “awareness of when to contact the CSC” (p = 0.002) among the subjects in Nerima City as compared to those in other cities.ConclusionThe results suggest that these collaborative actions were effective in promoting activities to support older adults and establishing relationships between CVSs and CSCs.