Preventing Suicide and Depression: A Training Program for Long-Term Care Staff

2001 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bonnie L. Walker ◽  
Nancy J. Osgood

Approximately 5 percent of those sixty-five and older live in long-term care facilities (1.5 million). Neither suicide and depression among the elderly who reside in long-term care facilities nor prevention techniques are well-understood by staff. This article discusses the development of a curriculum designed to train long-term care staff in preventing suicide among the elderly and the results of a pilot test of a training program based on that curriculum. The participants ( N=43) significantly improved their scores from pre- to post-test on the knowledge, attitudes, and practices subtests. The knowledge areas in which staff performed the most poorly at pre-test were related to identifying appropriate primary and secondary interventions, the relationship between dementia and suicide, methods of self-destruction used by the elderly, and understanding of depression in the elderly. There was a significant relationship between pre-test and post-test scores on all subtests. Staff with higher levels of education had significantly higher pre- and post-test scores on the knowledge and attitudes subtests. More experienced staff had significantly higher post-test scores on the practices subtest. A large majority of the participants had highly positive attitudes toward the program and thought the program had been very useful or useful to them as caregivers. The study demonstrated the need for staff training related to suicide prevention in long-term care as well as the usefulness of even a brief training.

1997 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-87 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas G. Castle

Long-term care institutions have emerged as dominant sites of death for the elderly. However, studies of this trend have primarily examined nursing homes. The purpose of this research is to determine demographic, functional, disease, and facility predictors and/or correlates of death for the elderly residing in board and care facilities. Twelve factors are found to be significant: proportion of residents older than sixty-five years of age, proportion of residents who are chair- or bed-fast, proportion of residents with HIV, bed size, ownership, chain membership, affiliation with a nursing home, number of health services provided other than by the facility, the number of social services provided other than by the facility, the number of social services provided by the facility, and visits by Ombudsmen. These are discussed and comparisons with similar studies in nursing homes are made.


2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 286-299 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fátima Ferreira Roquete ◽  
Carolina Campos Ricci Frá Batista ◽  
Rodrigo Caetano Arantes

Abstract Objective: to analyze the care and management demands of Long-Term Care Facilities for the Elderly (LTCFs) in Brazil. Method: an integrative review of literature was carried out, organized into six stages: a) elaboration of a guiding question; b) online search of LILACS, SciELO, PubMed, the CAPES Portal and the Brazilian Society of Geriatrics and Gerontology databases; c) article selection, following the exclusion and inclusion criteria, with the sample composed of 17 articles; d) commented analysis of the selected articles; e) deliberation on the results obtained, formulated from the synthesis and interpretation of the selected studies; f) presentation of the results of the review. Results: the care demands identified are related to the process of caring and assume a working team with geriatric and gerontological knowledge, while the management demands include the means and resources needed so the care can be provided effectively. However, the LTCFs were found to rely on professionals who are unprepared to provide care or to assume an organizational management role, meaning care for the elderly is restricted to the essentials for their basic needs. Conclusion: the care demands were easily identified in the analyzed publications, however, there is a lack of research that evaluates management demands in a broader and more in-depth manner. It is suggested that studies aiming to broaden theoretical knowledge of the care and management demands of LTCFs are carried out, to stimulate effective and positive actions in the practices of these institutions, seeking to offer top quality care to elderly persons that live in these facilities, that responds to the real needs of their current stage of life.


1994 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 278 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janet Greb ◽  
Larry W. Chambers ◽  
Amiram Gafni ◽  
Ron Goeree ◽  
Roberta Labelle

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annette Franke ◽  
Elmar Nass ◽  
Anna-Kathleen Piereth ◽  
Annabel Zettl ◽  
Christian Heidl

Assistive technologies including assistive robots (AT/AR) appear to be a promising response to the increasing prevalence of older adults in need of care. An increasing number of long-term care facilities (LTCFs) try to implement AT/AR in order to create a stimulating environment for aging well and to reduce workload for professional care staff. The implementation of new technologies in an organization may lead to noticeable cultural changes in terms of social interactions and care practices associated with positive or negative emotions for the employees. This applies especially for LTCFs with high rates of vulnerable residents affected by increasing care needs and specific ethics in nursing and cultural rules within the setting. Thus, systematic consideration in leadership management of emotions and ethical aspects is essential for stakeholders involved in the implementation process. In this article, we explicitly focus on the emotions of the employees and leaders within LTCFs. We relate to direct consequences for the organizational well-being and culture, which is of course (indirectly) affecting patients and residents. While aspects of technology acceptance such as safety and usefulness are frequently discussed in academic literature, the topic of emotion-management and ethical questions during the organizational implementation process in LTCFs received little attention. Emotional culture entails affective values, ethical norms and perceptions of employees and further investigation is needed to address the importance of transformational leadership during implementation process. For this purpose, we developed a three-staged assessment tool for implementation of AT/AR in long-term care institutions. Acceptance (A), ethical acceptability (A) and emotional consequences (E) are considered as comprehensive assessment, in which emotional consequences comprise management aspects of transformational leadership (T), emotion-management (E) and organizational culture (O). Based on AAE and TEO, this paper presents an integrated framework illustrated with a illustrative example and aims to combine established approaches with ethical insights in order to unfold potentials of AT/AR in LTCSs.


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