Search results for ‘Subject term:"older people"’ Sort:
Results 1 - 3 of 3
User-oriented elderly care: a validation study in two different settings using observational data
- Authors:
- KAZEMI Ali, KAJONIUS Petri J.
- Journal article citation:
- Quality in Ageing and Older Adults, 16(3), 2015, pp.140-152.
- Publisher:
- Emerald
Purpose: User-oriented care, defined as individualised assisting behaviours, is the dominant approach within elderly care today. Yet, there is little known about its conceptual structure. This paper proposes that user-oriented care has a bi-partite structure which may be decomposed into the two dimensions of task and relation. Design/methodology/approach: Care workers were “shadowed” (i.e. observed) at their work (n=391 rated interactions). User-oriented care was assessed along ten process quality indicators targeting the acts of caregiving (i.e. task focus, relation focus, involvement, time-use, body language, autonomy, respect, warmth, encouragement, and information) in two elderly care settings, i.e. home care and nursing home. Observations added up to 45 hours. Findings: Principal component analyses confirmed the proposed two-factor structure of user-oriented care. Specifically, the user-oriented care indicators loaded on two distinct factors, i.e. task and relation. The underlying structure of user-oriented care revealed to be invariant across the two settings. However, the results revealed interesting structural differences in terms of explained variance and the magnitude of factor loadings in the home care and nursing home settings. Differences also emerged specifically pertaining to the indicators of autonomy and time-use. These findings suggest that user-oriented behaviour may to some extent denote different acts of caregiving and what may be called task- and relation-orientation may be loaded with different meanings in these two care settings. Originality/value: This is the first study investigating user-oriented behaviour in the context of elderly care using a quantitative observational approach. The authors propose that the observed differences between the two care settings are primarily not due to better elderly care work in home care, but due to some inherent differences between these two contexts of care (e.g. better health and living at home). (Edited publisher abstract)
Structure and process quality as predictors of satisfaction with elderly care
- Authors:
- KAJONIUS Petri J., KAZEMI Ali
- Journal article citation:
- Health and Social Care in the Community, 24(6), 2016, p.699–707.
- Publisher:
- Wiley
The structure versus process approach to quality of care presented by Donabedian is one of the most cited ever. However, there has been a paucity of research into the empirical validity of this framework, specifically concerning the relative effects of structure and process on satisfaction with elderly care as perceived by the older persons themselves. The current research presents findings from a national survey, including a wide range of quality indicators for elderly care services, conducted in 2012 at the request of the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare in which responses from 95,000 elderly people living in 324 municipalities and districts were obtained. The results revealed that the only structural variable which significantly predicted quality of care was staffing, measured in terms of the number of caregivers per older resident. More interestingly, process variables (e.g. respect and access to information) explained 40% and 48% of the variance in satisfaction with care, over and above the structural variables, in home care and nursing homes respectively. The findings from this large nationwide sample examining Donabedian's model suggest that quality in elderly care is primarily determined by factors pertaining to process, that is, how caregivers behave towards the older persons. This encourages a continued quality improvement in elderly care with a particular focus on process variables. (Publisher abstract)
Safeness and treatment mitigate the effect of loneliness on satisfaction with elderly care
- Authors:
- KAJONIUS Petri J., KAZEMI Ali
- Journal article citation:
- Gerontologist, 56(5), 2016, pp.928-936.
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
Maximising satisfaction among the older persons is the goal of modern individualised elderly care and how to best achieve this is of relevance for people involved in planning and providing elderly care services. Purpose of the Study: What predicts satisfaction with care among older persons can be conceived as a function of process (how care is performed) and the older person. Inspired by the long-standing person versus situation debate, the present research investigated the interplay between person- and process-related factors in predicting satisfaction with elderly care. Design and Methods: A nationwide sample was analysed, based on a questionnaire with 95,000 individuals using elderly care services. Results: The results showed that person-related factors (i.e., anxiety, health, and loneliness) were significant predictors of satisfaction with care, although less strongly than process-related factors (i.e., treatment, safeness, and perceived staff and time availability). Among the person-related factors, loneliness was the strongest predictor of satisfaction among older persons in nursing homes. Interestingly, a path analysis revealed that safeness and treatment function as mediators in linking loneliness to satisfaction. Implications: The results based on a large national sample demonstrate that the individual ageing condition to a significant degree can be countered by a well-functioning care process, resulting in higher satisfaction with care among older persons. (Edited publisher abstract)