Small-scale care: A scoping review
Method Stream: Literature Review
ECs: Only 14 EC (standard, no new/own data collection. Applicable in case of a clinical internship)
Description:
There is a growing interest in small-scale care. Firstly, due to new insights from politics and society; secondly, because care entrepreneurs and care providers want to organize and arrange care differently; and thirdly, because people's care needs are changing. Although the umbrella term ‘small scale’ is paramount, this is not only about small-scale living, but above all about the way in which healthcare is organized and structured. This can be summarized as a human perspective rather than a healthcare perspective. The focus is on persons and their life contexts. This concerns how care is organized around a person as well as the way in which the person is approached. This perspective on small-scale care raises new questions about the working methods and approach of care providers, their competencies, and their implementation in practice.
An earlier, practice-oriented study involving care managers, care provides, caretakers and their families, found six values to be central in small-scale care: feeling at home, being together, doing what is necessary, joint management, and a normal environment, which have been shown to be important in previous research on small-scale care from a human perspective (Beernink & Westerhof, 2024).
In this assignment, you will do a scoping review of recent studies on small-scale care. In particular, we would like to know how small-scale care is defined in the literature and whether the six values that we derived from the study on Dutch small-scale care, are also addressed in the international literature.
Who are we looking for?
A conscientious student who can work systematically and who is interested in developments in health care.
What do we offer?
This assignment is part of a larger project, where we work together with multiple providers of small-scale care. This involves youth care and care for older adults, as well as care for people with intellectual disability and people with mental problems.