Building a Partnership to Enhance Self-Care Ability Among Elders Living in Long-Term Care Facilities

Wednesday, 1 August 2012

Tzu-Chun Chen, MA
Department of Health, Tainan Hospital, Tainan City, Taiwan
Su-Hsien Chang, PhD, RN, MSN
Department of Eldercare, National Tainan Institute of Nursing, Tainan City, Taiwan
Ching-Len Yu, PhD
Department of Environmental Engineering, Kun San University, Tainan City, Taiwan

Learning Objective 1: To understand how staffs construct family involvement in improving self-care ability among elders living in long-term care facilities.

Learning Objective 2: To undertsnad ho to build a partnership to Enhance self-care ability among elders.

Purpose:  To investigate how staffs construct family involvement in improving self-care ability among elders living in long-term care facilities.

 Methods: This study used a qualitative approach to gain a deeper understanding how family and staff construct family involvement in improving self-care ability among elders living in long-term care facilities. The data were collected through face-to-face interviews with staff caregivers in long-term care facilities.

 Results: In this study, 31 staff caregivers of long-term care facilities were recurited. The majority of them were female (n = 29) and nursing assistants (n = 19). The average age was 43.59 years old (SD = 10.43), and working period was 69.13 months (Minimum = 4AMaximum = 60.13). Results of the study found that to build bridge between families of elders and staff caregivers needs to include three major factors: (1) setting goals with residents, families and staff caregivers, (2) building trust relationship between families of elders and staff caregivers, and (3) staff caregivers should report residents’ condition to family members automatically. Results also found few factors affect self-care abilities improvement among residents. There were: 1) family members’ attitudes/behaviors and concerns about improving self-care abilities among elders, 2) residents’ characteristics and attitudes, and 3) staff caregivers’ attitudes/behaviors.

 Conclusion: Results of this study can provided academia, elders and their family members, and staff caregivers of long-term care facilities to build a partnership and set a mutual goal, aimed at improving self-care performance among residents in long-term care facilities.