Publications by authors named "Dieneke Smit"
Background: Despite the finding that involvement in activities is one of the most important needs of residents with dementia living in care homes, care facilities struggle to fulfill this need. Over the years, various factors are suggested which may contribute to or disable activity provision in dementia care homes. These include limited financial resources, task oriented staff and disease-related characteristics of residents.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Research showed that long-term care facilities differ widely in the use of psychotropic drugs and physical restraints. The aim of this study is to investigate whether characteristics of an unhealthy work environment in facilities for people with dementia are associated with more prescription of psychotropic drugs and physical restraints.
Methods: Data were derived from the first wave (2008-2009) of a national monitoring study in the Netherlands.
Objectives: Involvement in activities is assumed to positively influence the quality of life of people with dementia, yet activity provision in long-term care remains limited. This study aims to provide more insight into the value of activity involvement for domains of the quality of life of long-term dementia care residents, taking resident characteristics and cognitive status into account.
Method: Data were derived from 144 long-term care facilities participating in the second measurement (2010/2011) of the living arrangements for dementia study.
Aim: To explore the role of nursing staff's person-centredness caring for people with dementia in relation to their work environment and job-related well-being.
Background: Given the development towards person-centred care and labour force issues, research has recently focused on the effect of person-centredness on nursing staff's well-being. Findings from occupational stress research suggest that employees' personal characteristics, such as person-centredness, can moderate the impact particular job characteristics have on their job-related well-being.
Objectives: The aim of this study is to explore the extent to which staff-resident interactions address or undermine residents' psychological needs and how such interactions are associated with residents' well-being.
Method: Data on staff-resident interactions and residents' well-being were collected for 51 residents from nine long-term care settings using dementia care mapping (DCM). DCM yields a count and detailed description of staff-resident interactions that either address (personal enhancers - PEs) or undermine (personal detractions - PDs) residents' psychological needs, and every 5-minute scores for each resident's mood and engagement (ME-value).
Background: Occupation remains an unmet need in long-term dementia care. To increase residents' occupation, knowledge of types of occupation related to wellbeing, and organizational and environmental characteristics encouraging involvement in these types of occupation, is indispensable.
Methods: In this explorative study, Dementia Care Mapping was used to study involvement in different types of occupation and wellbeing among 57 residents of 10 dementia care facilities.
Background: Healthcare workers in nursing homes are faced with high job demands that can have a detrimental impact on job-related outcomes, such as job satisfaction. Job resources may have a buffering role on this relationship. The Demand-Control-Support (DCS) Model offers a theoretical framework to study how specific job resources can buffer the adverse effects of high demands, and can even activate positive consequences of high demands.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Nursing home care for people with dementia is increasingly organized in small-scale care settings. This study focuses on the question of how small-scale care is related to the overall activity involvement of residents with dementia, and their involvement in different types of activities. As several studies have indicated, activity involvement is important for the quality of life of residents.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: In this follow-up study, the long-term influence of group living homes (GLHs) on informal caregiver distress was compared with modern yet regular nursing homes (NHs).
Method: Informal caregivers of GLH (N = 37) and NH residents (N = 49) were studied at the time of admission, 6 months thereafter, and approximately 24 months after admission. Repeated measures of ANOVA were performed to study group-by-time effects on psychopathology, role overload, and feelings of competence.
Background: There is limited information available on how characteristics of the organization of nursing home care and especially group living home care and staff ratio contribute to care staff well being, quality of care and residents' quality of life. Furthermore, it is unknown what the consequences of the increasingly small scale organization of care are for the amount of care staff required in 2030 when there will be much more older people with dementia.
Methods/design: This manuscript describes the design of the 'Living Arrangements for people with Dementia study' (LAD-study).
Objectives: The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of group living care for people with dementia on the psychological distress of informal caregivers, compared with regular nursing home care.
Method: This study had a quasi-experimental design with two measurements. 67 primary informal caregivers in 19 group living homes and 99 primary informal caregivers in seven regular nursing homes filled in a questionnaire upon admission (baseline measurement) of their relative and six months later (effect measurement).