Ideal and reality; Community healthcare professionals’ experiences of user‐involvement in reablement

Many welfare states offer reablement, also known as restorative care, as an intervention to promote healthy ageing and support older adults in regaining or maintaining their independence in daily life. Reablement is a time‐limited, intensive, multidisciplinary, person‐centred and goal‐directed rehabilitative intervention. Reablement emanates from the user’s goals, thus user‐involvement is a key factor. The aim of our study was to explore healthcare professionals’ experiences of user‐involvement in reablement. The context for the study was an urban municipality in south‐eastern Norway where reablement had been implemented into home‐care services 1.5 years prior to the study. Eighteen healthcare professionals recruited from home‐care services participated in focus groups. The material was analysed using qualitative content analysis. The findings resulted in one main theme: Transforming user‐involvement from ideal to reality—a demanding process, and four sub‐themes: (a) An ideal of self‐determination and co‐operation; (b) Diverse ability to commit to what user‐involvement requires; (c) Continuous co‐creation processes; and (d) Challenged by old traditions. User‐involvement is a valued ideal that professionals strive towards when providing healthcare. Two main strategies that professionals use to enable user‐involvement were identified here: spending sufficient time and having patience with users during the initial stage of an intervention, and starting an intervention by introducing small tasks that users can master. It was also seen that if the time and arenas for interdisciplinary meetings were lacking, professionals could demonstrate traditional attitudes and practice when faced with limited user‐involvement in the intervention. There is a need for follow‐up over time at the structural, personal, and cultural levels to develop reablement as an intervention with a strong person‐centred approach. The findings of this study have relevance for practice development in several reablement settings.