Improving Geriatric Care Knowledge, Competency, and Resourcefulness of Home Care Nurses and Aides

Abstract

Home care nurses aides have opportunities to support families caring for frail elders; however, most lack specialized geriatric knowledge, competence, and resourcefulness skills essential to caring for vulnerable elders and assisting their families. This study compares the pretest and posttest intervention scores of a geriatric care continuing education program for nurses and aides. Specific participant outcomes include increased geriatric knowledge, competency, and resourcefulness.

How to Address the Health of Home Care Workers: A Systematic Review of the Last Two Decades

“…Most of the included studies have a quasi-experimental design ( n = 13). Of these, four studies conducted a control group comparison (Gerstel et al, 2013; Hartvigsen et al, 2005; Pohjonen & Ranta, 2001; Rosswurm et al, 2003), while nine studies examined the effectiveness of the intervention using a single-group pre-post design (Andersen et al, 2015; Coogle et al, 2007; Czuba et al, 2012; Fallahpour et al, 2020; Jellema et al, 2002; Leff et al, 2000; Olson et al, 2015, 2018; Petterson et al, 2006). Three studies conducted randomized controlled trials (Bagheri et al, 2021; Horneij et al, 2001; Roelofs et al, 2007); in two studies, a cluster randomization was executed (Fujita et al, 2019; Fukui et al, 2019; Olson et al, 2016).…”

“…Five studies conducted trainings/applied an educational approach. They all focused on work-related competencies and behaviors (Coogle et al, 2007; Fallahpour et al, 2020; Fujita et al, 2019; Fukui et al, 2019; Petterson et al, 2006; Rosswurm et al, 2003).…”

“…Health and safety behavior were examined in six studies (Gerstel et al, 2013; Horneij et al, 2001; Olson et al, 2015, 2016, 2018; Pohjonen & Ranta, 2001). Two studies explicitly included (health) resource-oriented primary outcomes (Petterson et al, 2006; Rosswurm et al, 2003), such as self-esteem, self-control, and coping. All primary outcomes are presented in Tables 1–4.…”

“…Studies exploring the impact on (health) resource-oriented primary outcomes showed mixed results. One intervention appears to positively affect home care aides but not home care nurses (Rosswurm et al, 2003), and the second intervention leads to improvements in self-esteem and coping but not in mastery (Petterson et al, 2006; significance of the change was not tested statistically).…”

Nursing Care of Elderly People at Home and Ethical Implications: an experience from Istanbul

“…After nurses attended a geriatric care continuing education program, the outcomes included increased geriatric knowledge, better competency and more resourcefulness. 48 Physicians should also support home caregivers, such as relatives and home care nurses. 49 As our results show, elderly patients expect to have nursing care at home and they also expect sensitive ethical approaches.…”