Alles Clara – Realist Evaluation Phase I

• Duration: August 2022 - February 2024
• Project Management: Univ. Prof. Dr. Hanna Mayer
• Research assistants: Theresa Clement BSc, MSc, Katharina Gabl, BScN
• Funding body: Alles Clara - Association for the Relief of Caring Relatives

Background: The Alles Clara project was launched in cooperation with Caritas Pflege der Erzdiözese Wien, the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute Digital Health and Patient Safety, ERSTE Foundation and Two Next inclusion. The aim of the project is to develop a low-threshold, digital support for carers. The project started in summer 2020 and the first prototype was developed in September 2020. Alles Clara connects carers with experts from different fields and enables flexible and low-threshold counselling at any time and place. In spring 2021, the Alles Clara app successfully completed the alpha phase. Since July 2022, Alles Clara has been in a pilot phase and is being used for the first time in a real context. This pilot phase should already enable a first evaluation.

The theoretical background of the evaluation is, on the one hand, the idea of person-centredness. In 2021, a theoretical foundation for ensuring person-centredness in the Alles Clara project was developed in an accompanying project. Secondly, the content-related goals that guided the development of Alles Clara. Since Alles Clara can be seen as a complex programme in the sense of Craig et al. (2013), the principles of theory-based evaluation, in particular those of realist evaluation, form the methodological background.

Objective: The objective is to evaluate the Alles Clara application during the pilot phase. In doing so, the aspect of complexity, which underlies this programme, is to be taken into account above all. The question used for this evaluation project is based on the fundamental question of realist evaluation according to Pawson and Tilley (1997): What works for whom, in what circumstances and in what ways, and how?