Health-promoting residential aged care: a pilot project in Austria

Long-term care for the aged is an area that has not been in the focus of health promotion so far. The paper describes context, concept and project plan of a 2-year pilot project of comprehensive health-promoting setting development in residential aged care in Austria, and provides an overview over main experiences and results. Austria’s most relevant health promotion agencies, a specialized scientific institute and Austria’s largest provider of aged care acted as partners. The project aimed at developing elements of a comprehensive approach, but also providing evidence for the effectiveness of health promotion. Therefore, the project combined an organizational development approach with a scientific, randomized controlled study on mobility enhancement for residents. A comprehensive settings approach turned out acceptable for the main stakeholders of aged care (owners and management, staff, residents and residents’ relatives). Strategy development, based on a systematic needs assessment, found staff health to be of special interest for the organization (ergonomics, workability over life course), and residents’ relatives, got more attention. The mobility study was able to achieve positive results on occupational performance, concerning quality-of-life indicators and reached also formerly inactive groups. After the end of the project, health promotion is still on the agenda of the organization; further developments will be monitored. Good support from the policy level and well-established networking between the aged care provider, health promotion agencies and a network for health promotion in health care seems to have been an important resource for success.