Differences In Nursing Home Staff COVID-19 Testing Rates And Odds Of Vaccination Across Work Shifts.

COVID-19 vaccination and regular testing of nursing home staff have been critical interventions for mitigating COVID-19 outbreaks in US nursing homes. Although implementation of testing has largely been left to nursing home organizations to coordinate, vaccination occurred through a combination of state, federal, and organization efforts. Little research has focused on structural variation in these processes.

Intimate relationships in residential aged care: what factors influence staff decisions to intervene?

Intimacy contributes to our well-being and extends into older age, despite cognitive or physical impairment. However, the ability to enjoy intimacy and express sexuality is often compromised-or even controlled-when one moves into residential aged care. The aim of this study was to identify what factors influence senior residential aged care staff when they make decisions regarding resident intimate relationships and sexual expression.

Association of State COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates With Staff Vaccination Coverage and Staffing Shortages in US Nursing Homes.

Importance: Several states implemented COVID-19 vaccine mandates for nursing home employees, which may have improved vaccine coverage but may have had the unintended consequence of staff departures.

Objective: To assess whether state vaccine mandates for US nursing home employees are associated with staff vaccination rates and reported staff shortages.

Design Setting And Participants: This cohort study performed event study analyses using National Healthcare Safety Network data from June 6, 2021, through November 14, 2021.

Addressing hesitancy to COVID-19 vaccines in healthcare assistants.

COVID-19 vaccination rates have been suboptimal in frontline healthcare assistants (HCAs). We sought to characterize contributors to COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy among HCAs. We conducted an analysis of online survey responses from members of the National Association of Health Care Assistants from December 2020-January 2021.

COVID-19 Vaccine Uptake Among Nursing Home Staff via Statewide Policy: The Mississippi Vaccinate or Test Out Policy.

To examine whether COVID-19 vaccine mandates that allow a test-out exemption for nursing home staff are associated with increased staff vaccination rates in nursing homes. Using the National Healthcare Safety Network data, we conducted analyses to test trends over time in statewide staff vaccination rates between June 1, 2021, and August 29, 2021, in Mississippi, 4 adjacent states, and the United States overall. COVID-19 staff vaccination rates increased slowly following Mississippi enacting a vaccinate-or-test-out policy, achieving small, but statistically greater gains than most comparator states.

Evaluating the Findings of the IMPACT-C Randomized Clinical Trial to Improve COVID-19 Vaccine Coverage in Skilled Nursing Facilities.

Importance: Identifying successful strategies to increase COVID-19 vaccination among skilled nursing facility (SNF) residents and staff is integral to preventing future outbreaks in a continually overwhelmed system.

Objective: To determine whether a multicomponent vaccine campaign would increase vaccine rates among SNF residents and staff.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This was a cluster randomized trial with a rapid timeline (December 2020-March 2021) coinciding with the Pharmacy Partnership Program (PPP).

Strategies associated with COVID-19 vaccine coverage among nursing home staff.

Background: After the first of three COVID-19 vaccination clinics in U.S. nursing homes (NHs), the median vaccination coverage of staff was 37.

Perceptions of COVID-19 vaccines among healthcare assistants: A national survey.

Background: Limited COVID-19 vaccination acceptance among healthcare assistants (HCAs) may adversely impact older adults, who are at increased risk for severe COVID-19 infections. Our study objective was to evaluate the perceptions of COVID-19 vaccine safety and efficacy in a sample of frontline HCAs, overall and by race and ethnicity.

Methods: An online survey was conducted from December 2020 to January 2021 through national e-mail listserv and private Facebook page for the National Association of Health Care Assistants.

Social Cognitive Theory as a Theoretical Framework to Predict Sexual Risk Behaviors among Older Adults.

Objectives: Older adults vary in their safe and unsafe sexual behaviors. While researchers are beginning to understand more about the sexual and intimate expression of older adults, only recently are they beginning to understand how older adults make decisions about sexual risk. Bandura's social cognitive theory offers a frame for understanding how self-efficacy, environmental factors, and goal motivation are related to sexual risk behaviors for older adults, including the interplay between these variables.

Aging sexual stereotypes and sexual expression in mid- and later life: examining the stereotype matching effect.

Objectives: Ageist sexual stereotypes may prohibit midlife and older adults from achieving sexual wellness when stereotypical beliefs about aging, sex, and intimacy become internalized over the life course (i.e. stereotype embodiment).

Elder sexual abuse and implicit agism: examining the warm-incompetent bias among mock jurors.

Implicit ageist beliefs about the warmth and incompetence of older adults may influence jurors' perceptions and judgments of an older adult's competence in legal cases hinging on capacity and consent, including elder sexual abuse. However, little is known about the nuances of implicit agism in elder sexual abuse cases, and if it can be attenuated. The current study proposed to address these gaps via a randomized vignette design administered to a community sample of 391 US adults.

Engagement and Adoption of Person-Centered Care: Participant Experiences in the Kansas PEAK 2.0 Program.

The Promoting Excellent Alternatives in Kansas (PEAK) 2.0 program provides training, evaluation, and support in person-centered care (PCC) for nursing homes across Kansas. To represent the participant voice, nursing home employees (N = 141) provided feedback on their experiences and their home's level of engagement in PEAK 2.

Initiating Aha moments when implementing person-centered care in nursing homes: a multi-arm, pre-post intervention.

Background: Comprehensive adoption of culture change via person-centered care (PCC) practices in nursing homes has been slow. Change such as this, requires transformation of organizational culture, frequently generating resistance and slow moving change. This study examined how nursing homes perceive their adoption of PCC practices across seven domains and how these perceptions change in response to an educational intervention embedded in a statewide program, Promoting Excellent Alternatives in Kansas nursing homes (PEAK 2.

Person-Centered Sexual Expression: Determining Preferences of Future Nursing Home Residents.

Background And Objectives: Approaches to sexual expression in nursing homes are often devoid of person-centered components, such as resident choice. Little is known about residents' preferences for sexual and intimate expression across different situations. To evaluate future resident preferences, a convenience sample of 389 midlife and older adults in the United States were assessed for their perceptions of appropriateness of sexual and intimate activity among couples in nursing homes, given certain situational factors (e.

"At My Age … ": Defining Sexual Wellness in Mid- and Later Life.

Sexual wellness is integral to quality of life across the life span, despite ageist stereotypes suggesting sexual expression ends at midlife. However, conceptualizing sexual wellness in mid- and later life is complicated by a dysfunction-based narrative, lack of a sex-positive aging framework, and existing measures that are age irrelevant and limited in scope. This study aimed to address these limitations by providing a conceptualization of sexual wellness grounded in definitions from midlife and older adults.

Supporting safe sexual and intimate expression among older people in care homes.

This article outlines how care home staff can support safe sexual and intimate expression among older people. Older people may continue to engage in sexual and intimate acts in a residential setting; however, because of the stigma associated with sexual and intimate expression among older people, many care homes prohibit such intimacy. It is essential that care home staff adopt a person-centred approach to care that recognises the importance of maintaining the dignity and autonomy of residents while considering the potential for harm associated with sexual and intimate expression.

Actualizing culture change: The Promoting Excellent Alternatives in Kansas Nursing Homes (PEAK 2.0) program.

Nursing homes have been challenged in their attempts to achieve deep, organizational change (i.e., culture change) aimed at providing quality of care and quality of life for nursing home residents through person-centered care.

Content analysis of public opinion on sexual expression and dementia: Implications for nursing home policy development.

Purpose: We examined public opinion of sexual expression and dementia to inform nursing home policy and practice.

Design And Methods: A content analysis was conducted on public comments (N=1194) posted in response to a New York Times article about a highly publicized legal case involving a husband engaging in sexual acts with his wife who had dementia, living in a nursing home. Researchers utilized constant comparative analysis to code the comments; reliability analysis showed moderately strong agreement at the subcategory level.

Sexual Consent Capacity Assessment with Older Adults.

Many healthcare providers have a limited knowledge of sexual and intimate expression in later life, often due to attitudinal and informational limitations. Further, the likelihood of an older adult experiencing cognitive decline increases in a long-term care (LTC) setting, complicating the ability of the providers to know if the older adult can make his or her own sexual decisions, or has sexual consent capacity. Thus, the team is left to question if and how to support intimacy and/or sexuality among residents with intimacy needs.

Recommendations for sexual expression management in long-term care: a qualitative needs assessment.

Aims: To conduct a qualitative needs assessment of Directors of Nursing regarding challenges and recommendations for addressing sexual expression and consent.

Background: Sexual expression management among long-term care residents is a complex issue for nursing home staff. Little guidance is available for those wanting to follow a person-centred approach.

A Comparison of Actual and Perceived Sexual Risk Among Older Adults.

Sexual risk among older adults (OAs) is prevalent, though little is known about the accuracy of sexual risk perceptions. Thus, the aim was to determine the accuracy of sexual risk perceptions among OAs by examining concordance between self-reported sexual risk behaviors and perceived risk. Data on OAs aged 50 to 92 were collected via Amazon.

Somali Perspectives on Physical Activity: PhotoVoice to Address Barriers and Resources in San Diego.

Background: Although many immigrants enter the United States with a healthy body weight, this health advantage disappears the longer they reside in the United States. To better understand the complexities of obesity change within a cultural framework, a community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach, PhotoVoice, was used, focusing on physical activity among Muslim Somali women.

Objectives: The CBPR partnership was formed to identify barriers and resources to engaging in physical activity with goals of advocacy and program development.

Examining aging sexual stigma attitudes among adults by gender, age, and generational status.

Objectives: Stigma related to later life sexuality could produce detrimental effects for older adults, through individual concerns and limited sexual health care for older adults. Identifying groups at risk for aging sexual stigma will help to focus interventions to reduce it. Accordingly, the purpose of this study was to examine cross-sectional trends in aging sexual stigma attitudes by age group, generational status, and gender.