In recent years, there has been an increased focus on the need to better protect the dignity of people who depend on another person for help with personal tasks such as toileting or the management of incontinence. Our aim is to minimise the risk of violations to their personal dignity. We found limited information about providing continence care assistance in ways that protect people’s dignity.  

Our research aims to develop and evaluate a method to measure dignity in continence care for people who rely on a formal carer for help with toileting, incontinence or bladder or bowel care. It is part of an overall program of research that aims to challenge practices that violate dignity and recognise opportunities for dignity preservation.

We are designing two instruments: one for aged care residents to complete and one for staff. We will invite residents and aged care staff to review and comment on the draft instruments and then we will conduct a large survey to evaluate response processes to determine if the instrument is stable (test-retest reliability).

The research is funded by The Australian Bladder Foundation.

Contact: Dr Joan Ostaszkiewicz