scholarly journals Evaluation of an Oral Hygiene Education Program for Staff Providing Long-Term Care Services: A Mixed Methods Study

Author(s):  
Shang-Jung Wu ◽  
Chun-Chieh Wang ◽  
Shu-Chen Kuo ◽  
Shwn-Huey Shieh ◽  
Yueh-Juen Hwu

Background: Oral hygiene is often neglected in clients receiving long-term care, suggesting that long-term care workers require formal oral hygiene education. Thus, the aim of this study was to investigate the effects of oral hygiene education on long-term care workers. Methods: This study utilized a mixed methods design. Eighty long-term care workers were recruited for participation in the oral hygiene education program, which employed three teaching methods: narration with multimedia presentation, demonstration, and teach-back. The effect of the education program on the participants’ level of oral hygiene knowledge, attitudes, and skills was measured using a structured questionnaire that was administered both pre- and post-delivery of the education program. Three months later, all participants submitted a self-report of their oral hygiene skills, and six participants completed a telephone interview. Quantitative data were analyzed using paired t-tests, and qualitative data were manually analyzed and coded. Results: Scores of oral hygiene knowledge (p < 0.001), attitudes (p = 0.001), and oral cleaning daily frequency for clients (p < 0.001), were significantly higher three months after undertaking the educational program. Conclusions: This preliminary study suggests that oral hygiene education may be effective in improving oral hygiene knowledge, attitudes, and skills among long-term care staff.

2015 ◽  
Vol 27 (10) ◽  
pp. 1739-1747 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Beattie ◽  
Maria O’Reilly ◽  
Wendy Moyle ◽  
Lynn Chenoweth ◽  
Deirdre Fetherstonhaugh ◽  
...  

ABSTRACTBackground:Dementia is a chronic illness without cure or effective treatment, which results in declining mental and physical function and assistance from others to manage activities of daily living. Many people with dementia live in long term care facilities, yet research into their quality of life (QoL) was rare until the last decade. Previous studies failed to incorporate important variables related to the facility and care provision or to look closely at the daily lives of residents. This paper presents a protocol for a comprehensive, multi-perspective assessment of QoL of residents with dementia living in long term care in Australia. A secondary aim is investigating the effectiveness of self-report instruments for measuring QoL.Methods:The study utilizes a descriptive, mixed methods design to examine how facility, care staff, and resident factors impact QoL. Over 500 residents with dementia from a stratified, random sample of 53 facilities are being recruited. A sub-sample of 12 residents is also taking part in qualitative interviews and observations.Conclusions:This national study will provide a broad understanding of factors underlying QoL for residents with dementia in long term care. The present study uses a similar methodology to the US-based Collaborative Studies of Long Term Care (CS-LTC) Dementia Care Study, applying it to the Australian setting.


2017 ◽  
Vol 65 (10) ◽  
pp. 467-477 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kelly Doran ◽  
Barbara Resnick

Little is known about long-term care workers’ cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk. Thus, the authors used baseline objective and subjective data from 98 long-term care staff participating in a worksite health promotion study to provide a comprehensive CVD assessment. The median age of the sample was 32 years ( SD = 13.38). Nine (12.2%) participants smoked and 27 (37.0%) participants reported exposure to secondhand smoke. The average nightly hours of sleep was 6.5 ( SD = 1.18), with 24 (32%) participants reporting sleeping at least fairly bad. Sixty-eight participants (73.1%) were overweight or obese. The median aerobic activity was 0 ( SD = 18.56). Participants ate on average 27 ( SD = 17.34) servings of high fatty and/or salty foods per week. Although blood pressure and cholesterol levels were within normal limits, this population demonstrated poor behavioral CVD risk factors. Given this finding and the young age of the sample, these workers may be ideal candidates for health promotion efforts before health risk factors are present.


2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (15) ◽  
pp. 64-67
Author(s):  
George Barnes ◽  
Joseph Salemi

The organizational structure of long-term care (LTC) facilities often removes the rehab department from the interdisciplinary work culture, inhibiting the speech-language pathologist's (SLP's) communication with the facility administration and limiting the SLP's influence when implementing clinical programs. The SLP then is unable to change policy or monitor the actions of the care staff. When the SLP asks staff members to follow protocols not yet accepted by facility policy, staff may be unable to respond due to confusing or conflicting protocol. The SLP needs to involve members of the facility administration in the policy-making process in order to create successful clinical programs. The SLP must overcome communication barriers by understanding the needs of the administration to explain how staff compliance with clinical goals improves quality of care, regulatory compliance, and patient-family satisfaction, and has the potential to enhance revenue for the facility. By taking this approach, the SLP has a greater opportunity to increase safety, independence, and quality of life for patients who otherwise may not receive access to the appropriate services.


Author(s):  
Neta Roitenberg

The article extends the discussion on the challenges in gaining access to the field in medical ethnographic research, focusing on long-term care (LTC) facilities. Medical institutions have been documented to be difficult sites to access. The reference, however, is to the recruitment of patients as informants. The challenges of recruiting practitioners as informants have not been investigated at all. The article presents the key issues that emerged in the process of gaining social access at the sites of two LTC facilities as part of a study on care workers’ identities. The main obstacles encountered during the fieldwork were organizational constraints and negotiating control over the process of recruiting the lower occupational tier of care workers with gatekeepers. The article presents the coping strategies implemented to overcome the ethical and methodological obstacles: continually reassessing the consent and cooperation of participants and developing a rapport with nurse’s aides during interviews.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 39-39
Author(s):  
Katie Aubrecht ◽  
Ivy Bourgeault ◽  
Tamara Daly

Abstract Intersectionality is a useful method (Lutz, 2015) for interdisciplinary long-term care (LTC) research to advance a more critical understanding of how experiences of quality are shaped by mutually reproducing social divisions, identities and relations of power that shape LTC. This paper discusses insights from the “Mapping Care Relationships” stream of the Seniors – Adding Life to Years (SALTY) project, a pan-Canadian program of research examining clinical, social and policy perspectives on quality in LTC. “Mapping Care Relationships” mapped how promising approaches to care relationships are organized and experienced in LTC. From January 2018-August 2019 our team of nine researchers conducted rapid ethnographies in eight nursing homes, two in each of four provinces across Canada. We purposively observed and interviewed workers from a wide variety of positions and backgrounds, informed by an intersectionality approach. We traced how promising approaches in person-centred dementia care (PCDC) in particular may reify the subordinated status of care workers (some more than others) and reinforce inequities within LTC systems. In multiple LTC homes, front-line care workers described experiencing physical and emotional harm in care relationships with residents which caused them distress. However, consistent with a PCDC approach, the harm was attributed to ‘behaviours’ clinically symptomatic of dementia. In framing power differentials from a medical perspective, PCDC makes it possible to interpret harmful experiences as 'part of the job’ and something workers should know to expect, prevent, avoid, redirect, or ignore. Lutz, H. (2015). Intersectionality as method. DiGeSt. Journal of diversity and gender studies, 2(1-2), 39-44.


Author(s):  
Kathleen T. Unroe ◽  
Russell Evans ◽  
Lindsay Weaver ◽  
Dan Rusyniak ◽  
Justin Blackburn

Author(s):  
Bum Jung Kim ◽  
Sun-young Lee

Extensive research has demonstrated the factors that influence burnout among social service employees, yet few studies have explored burnout among long-term care staff in Hawaii. This study aimed to examine the impact of job value, job maintenance, and social support on burnout of staff in long-term care settings in Hawaii, USA. This cross-sectional study included 170 long-term care staff, aged 20 to 75 years, in Hawaii. Hierarchical regression was employed to explore the relationships between the key independent variables and burnout. The results indicate that staff with a higher level of perceived job value, those who expressed a willingness to continue working in the same job, and those with strong social support from supervisors or peers are less likely to experience burnout. Interventions aimed at decreasing the level of burnout among long-term care staff in Hawaii may be more effective through culturally tailored programs aimed to increase the levels of job value, job maintenance, and social support.


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