Exploring the experiences of people living with dementia in Dementia Friendly Communities (DFCs) in Northern Ireland: a realist evaluation protocol.

To give confidence in moving from hypothetical constructions about how DFCs could function to explanations of possible or observable causal mechanisms, the realist evaluation of a complex intervention incorporates a variety of evidence and perspectives. Despite playing a significant role in a person with dementia's everyday life, it appears that little is known about how communities function to achieve intended results. Even though there has been a lot of work to pinpoint the fundamentals and crucial phases of building DFCs, it is still unclear how people living with dementia benefit the most from these communities. This study intends to advance our understanding of how outcomes are produced for people living with dementia by contributing to the underlying theory of DFCs as well as addressing the primary research objectives.