None listed
Conditions
Brief summary
Thousands of older Australians live in aged care facilities (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2015). This living arrangement can result in a significant loss of a person’s sense of identity. Professional care staff may not know a resident well, nor appreciate the resident’s individuality. Given the growing trend in Australian health care towards person-centred care in aged care settings, where care practices are tailored to individual needs, there is a need to develop effective methods for helping care staff better understand a resident, in order to promote the delivery of personalised care. Life-stories are narratives about an individual that can communicate to the care staff, the values, and self-image favoured by the resident. Such stories focus on individuals’ achievements, accomplishments, and interests. Although there are several programs worldwide that allow for older adults in residential care to tell their story, no research has been done to examine the impact of such written stories on the attitudes of residential professional care staff. The aims of this research is to examine the impact of life stories written by Swinburne Journalism students, on the attitudes of care staff about the residents. The project examines if care staff show a change in their attitudes, knowledge, and understanding about a resident after reading a 2-4 page story about the resident. In this study such stories are investigated for their impact on attitudes, knowledge and understanding of professional care staff and if positive, it could impact on care practices, and hence be used more widely in Australia for fostering a person-centred care culture in such settings.
Interventions
This project examines the impact of aged care resident's written life stories on the attitudes of professional care staff. The project examines if care staff show a change in their attitudes and knowledge about a resident after reading a 2-4 page story written by university journalism students, about the resident. The story showcases an aspect of the resident’s life, such as important achievements, memorable experiences, valued relationships. Three sessions were held for 45-60 minute duration. T
This project examines the impact of aged care resident's written life stories on the attitudes of professional care staff. The project examines if care staff show a change in their attitudes and knowledge about a resident after reading a 2-4 page story written by university journalism students, about the resident. The story showcases an aspect of the resident’s life, such as important achievements, memorable experiences, valued relationships. Three sessions were held for 45-60 minute duration. The sessions were face-to-face one-on-one sessions between each resident and the journalism student. and occurred once per week over a 3-week period. The sessions provided information for the story to the journalism students.
Sponsors
A/Prof Sunil Bhar
Study design
Allocation
Randomised controlled trial
Primary purpose
Educational / counselling / training
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
All
Age
18 Years to 60 Years
Healthy volunteers
Yes
Inclusion criteria
Participants must be an employee of a residential aged care facility, provide care to residents of the facility, have a minimum grade 7 level of English, and be willing to provide informed consent for participating in the study.
Exclusion criteria
Level of English grade less than 7.
Outcome results
None listed