Educational Program for Promoting Collaboration Between Community Care Professionals and Convenience Stores

Abstract

Convenience stores play an important role in supporting community-dwelling older adults’ lives. This study aimed to describe the development of and to evaluate an educational program to promote collaboration between communities and convenience stores in Japan. We developed the educational program based on interviews of convenience store staff to encourage them to collaborate with health/social care professionals for helping older adults. We conducted pre- and post-program questionnaire surveys of 184 participants to evaluate the program. After the program, the total score for attitudes toward dementia (p =.010) improved significantly among the convenience store staff. On the contrary, the score for “solidarity and proactiveness,” a subscale for sense of community, improved significantly among health/social care professionals (p =.003). This educational program can have a significant effect on the perceptions and attitudes for supporting older adults, depending on the participants’ occupations. This educational program could foster community networks, leading to an age-friendly community.