Staff perspectives on independence and collaborative practices in the IRIS intervention: an evaluation in Swedish LSS residential homes.
Sylvia Olsson, Carina Loeb, Munir Dag
PMID 40421402WHAT IT FOUND
Staff in Swedish residential homes had no shared definition of independence and often offered only staff-set choices.
They said the collaborative IRIS approach helped service users with daily tasks and social outings, but also that staff sometimes did tasks for them to save time.
Key findings
01Staff had no shared workplace definition of independence, and there was no regular discussion of it.
02Service users were often offered choices between two staff-proposed options, not a free choice to decline required tasks.
03Staff described the collaborative IRIS approach as helping service users do daily tasks more independently and take part in social activities.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTs
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What it does not show
The study interviewed seven staff members who volunteered from a group of 34, so it captures a small, self-selected set of staff views. It reports staff perspectives only; service users were not interviewed, and there were no measured service user outcomes. The work was done in LSS residential homes in a medium-sized Swedish municipality, so it may not apply to other settings. Staff had different understandings of IRIS, and one participant did not fully understand it, which makes it hard to know exactly what was delivered. Because IRIS involved collaboration, task breakdown, and practical adaptations, the contribution of any single component cannot be separated.
Declared interests
The authors report financial support for the research and publication, and practical support for participant sampling from Eskilstuna municipality in Sweden.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read staff reports of improved independence as evidence that IRIS works. The study interviewed seven staff about perceptions, not service users or measured outcomes, and IRIS included collaboration, smaller sub-goals, and practical adaptations, so the effect of any single component cannot be separated.