Care Aides’ Perceptions and Experiences of their Roles and Relationships with Residents in Long-term Care Settings

• Author / Creator

  Andersen, Elizabeth A

• The purpose of this study was to explore care aides’ perceptions and experiences
  of their roles and relationships with residents in long-term care institutions, and
  how the context, including the organizational philosophy, influenced those
  perceptions and experiences. The method of exploration was qualitative focused
  ethnography. Convenience and purposive sampling were used to recruit 22 care
  aides from five long-term care facilities in a western Canadian city. Data were
  collected via semi-structured interviews. Data analysis utilized constant
  comparison to identify themes or patterns within and across participants as well as
  comparison of new data to data previously analyzed. It emerged that a dominant
  influence on care aides’ perceptions of their roles and relationships was the way
  they experienced a model of cultural change called the Eden Alternative®. The
  Eden Alternative® model aims to increase quality of life for institutionalized
  persons by restructuring delivery of care and transforming institutional
  environments into more habitable places to live. However, although the care
  aides believed in an ideal occupational relational purpose or state, they perceived
  that the model had been incompletely implemented in their facilities, was
  incompatible with an existing organizational policy, and had eroded after
  implementation. Instead of feeling supported and reassured by fellowship, most of the care aides worked with the residents alone and without reference to each other. They emphasized what separated them, rather than what united them. Without a shared purpose and collegial connections they felt a reduced
  relationship to the larger residential community. Meaningful personal
  connections with residents no longer assigned to them were lost. They felt
  overburdened by their expanded responsibilities; they found themselves engaged in conflicts with residents and families; and many felt unsupported by
  management. As a consequence, they had little time or energy to be compassionate, empathetic partners to the residents permanently assigned to them. This study contributes to the body of knowledge used by registered nurses, nurse educators and nursing home managers/administrators who train and support care aides and may be useful to managers/administrators who make the decisions that shape and affect services provided to residents.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Care aides
  • Relationships
  • Focused ethnography
  • Eden Alternative®
  • Cultural change
  • Long-term care
  • Roles

• Graduation date

  Fall 2012

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Doctor of Philosophy

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R3665P

• License

  This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Libraries with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.