New from PHI’s National Clearinghouse
The newest additions to the PHI National Clearinghouse on the Direct Care Workforce:
Relationships among Employees’ Working Conditions, Mental Health, and Intention to Leave in Nursing Homes — In this study, researchers examine questionnaires filled out by more than 1,500 nursing assistants in 18 for-profit nursing homes to determine which factors correlate with intention to quit. The results show that employees who were able to name at least four benefits of their job were 77 percent less likely to indicate a strong intention to leave their job. The researchers conclude that workplaces should work to “build better interpersonal relationships, show respect for employees’ work, and involve employees in decision-making processes.” The study appeared in the February 2014 Journal of Applied Gerontology.
Toward a Model Long-Term Services and Supports System: State Policy Elements — H. Stephen Kaye of the University of California, San Francisco, presents several suggestions about how long-term services and supports systems can evolve to better promote “community living over institutionalization, integration over segregation, and full social participation over isolation.” Some of those suggestions include focusing on workforce development, improving job conditions for direct-care workers (and family caregivers), and increasing support for consumer direction.
Attitudes toward Death, Dying, End-of-Life Palliative Care, and Interdisciplinary Practice in Long Term Care Workers — This survey, published in the March 2014 JAMDA, examines long-term care workers’ feelings on death and dying. The researchers found that nursing assistants were much more likely to have negative attitudes toward death than physicians and nurses. The authors cite these findings as evidence that additional training and education are necessary to help nursing assistants cope with the realities of death in eldercare settings.
Enhancing Home Care Staff Safety through Reducing Client Aggression and Violence in Noninstitutional Care Settings: A Systematic Review — This study, from the February 2014 Home Health Care Management & Practice, outlines the “problematic” frequency of client violence and aggression toward home care workers. Such violence may grow more pervasive, given the increasing shift away from institutional settings toward home and community-based care settings, the authors note. Home care workers are more vulnerable to client violence than are direct-care workers in institutional settings.
Preventive Home Visits for Mortality, Morbidity, and Institutionalization in Older Adults: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis — This meta-analysis looks at 64 studies of the effectiveness of preventive home visits on quality of care for elders. (Preventive home visits aim to maintain elders’ independence through preventive interventions, rather than aiming to rehabilitate clients’ specific medical problems.) The researchers found that, despite frequent visits, clients showed little improvement in areas such as mortality or the ability to live independently. The researchers, however, caution that low-quality reporting standards by home health providers could have skewed their data. The study was published on the website of PLOS ONE, a scientific journal, on March 12.
The PHI National Clearinghouse on the Direct Care Workforce is a national online library for people in search of solutions to the direct-care staffing crisis in long-term care. It houses over 1,000 articles, reports, issue briefs, and fact sheets on the direct-care workforce.
— by Matthew Ozga
