Inequalities in the Quality and Safety of Post-Diagnostic Primary Care for People With Dementia: A Scoping Review

Introduction: International guidelines make recommendations for the delivery of safe, high-quality primary care for people with dementia including prescribing, personalised care planning and regular holistic reviews. It is unclear how the quality and safety of this healthcare varies with socio-economic factors.

Objective: This scoping review aimed to understand the depth and breadth of existing evidence exploring socio-economic variation in the quality and safety of primary care for people with dementia.

Methods: Prescribing and care planning indicators of high-quality, safe primary care were defined from guidance. Composite and proxy markers of socio-economic status (SES) were defined. EMBASE, MEDLINE, PsychInfo, The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, worldcat.org and clinicaltrial.gov databases were searched. Studies in English, on human participants from 2006 onwards were eligible. Narrative synthesis was conducted. Studies explored how one or more selected indicators (anti-dementia medication and anti-psychotic prescribing, potentially inappropriate prescribing (PIP), medication review, dementia review or care planning) varied with a recognised marker of SES in people with dementia.

Results: Searches identified 1980 studies after removing duplicates. 385 full texts were reviewed, with 53 eligible for inclusion (51 quantitative, 2 reviews). Most identified studies explored prescribing processes (50 quantitative, 2 reviews), with 2 exploring annual review. There was evidence of substantial disparity in quality and safety indicators in studies exploring prescribing; 20/29 (69%) of studies exploring anti-dementia medication prescribing found those with markers of lower SES were significantly less likely to receive these. 16/28 studies exploring PIP/Anti-psychotics found significant disparities in safe prescribing for those with markers of lower SES. Neither study exploring annual reviews found any significant differences across SES.

Conclusion: We found evidence of disparity in the quality and safety of post-diagnostic primary care for people with dementia based on SES, particularly for a range of prescribing indicators. Further work exploring inequalities in care planning and reviews for people with dementia is needed to understand existing inequalities in the quality and safety of primary care for people with dementia.