Research concerning the Care Planning by Care Managers in Home-Based Community Care Support Centers of Japan
Abstract The research was conducted between February 9 and 28, 2017. The care management centers were randomly selected from the national list of the centers. The data were collected by self-administered questionnaires mailed to the care managers at 500 care management centers in six prefectures in the Kinki area of Japan. The independent variables were gender, age, experience years of care managers and/or social workers, Clients’ Physical and Mental conditions (CPM), Client’s Lifestyle (CL), Physical and Mental conditions of the Caregivers (PMC), and Human and Financial resources for Clients and their Caregivers (HFCC). The dependent of variables were the categorized contents in the care planning. They included the Approach for exploring Client’s needs (AC), Coordination among Care services within the program in accordance with the needs of client (CC), Coordination among Formal services and informal supports without the program in accordance with the needs of clients (CF). We examined the relationships between the dependent and independent variables by using the Structural Equation Modeling. The results indicated that the goodness of the fit indices was acceptable, and we retained the models. In correlational analyses, AC was significantly correlated with PMC (p<.01), CPM (p<.05), and CL (p<.001). CC was significantly correlated with PMC (p<.001), CPM (p<.001), and CL (p<.01). CF was significantly correlated with PMC (p<.05), HFCC (p<.05), and CL (p<.05). In conclusion, our findings suggest that care managers should recognize that information concerning the clients’ and their caregivers’ conditions is significant in making appropriate care planning for the clients and their caregivers.