Inclusion of older citizens with physical and psychosocial frailties into the social community of municipal senior centres

PhD project in collaboration with Aalborg Municipality
The risk of feeling socially isolated or excluded rises with age and affects both the physical and mental health of older
people. Especially older people with physical or psychosocial frailty factors that limits their possibility of participation in
activities directed at the general population are at risk. Municipal senior centres offer a variety of activities for older
people above the age of 65 designed to improve the physical, mental and social capacity of the users and holds a great
potential for health promotion and disease prevention and support of general wellbeing. However, accessing the services
offered by the senior centres presents a challenge for some people, especially those with physical and psychosocial
frailties are in need of support to enter and become part of the social community.
The overall objective of this PhD project therefore is to contribute with new knowledge and methods to ensure that older
citizens with physical or psychosocial frailties are identified and offered appropriate support in order for them to enter
the social communities of the municipal senior centres and thus gain social relations and develop a social network. This
will be obtained through three coherent sub-studies with following aims:
1. To develop a supportive intervention targeting older citizens with physical or psychosocial frailty factors to
identify and include them in the social community of the senior centres.
2. To test the developed supportive intervention in the context of municipal senior centres in small scale through a
pilot cluster-randomized controlled trial.
3. To evaluate the sustainability of how the intervention works in practice through process evaluation.
The study applies an internationally acknowledged framework for development, feasibility and pilot test of complex
interventions and will be based on a strong knowledge base, theories about social relations and a high level of stakeholder
involvement. The expected outcomes of the study is a thoroughly developed and tested new model for identification and
inclusion of a vulnerable group of older people in the social community of municipal senior centres and in long term
perspective improvement of their physical and psychosocial health.