Home care (HC) aides experience numerous safety hazards in clients' homes; many hazards also put clients at risk. We hypothesized that safety coaching led by nurse managers (NMs) during their initial HC needs assessment could prompt clients to improve safety conditions in their homes. Following a 2-arm proof-of-concept intervention study design, intervention NMs used motivational interviewing (MI), facilitated by a safety handbook and video, to coach clients on home safety improvements.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAssuring home care (HC) workers' safety is challenging because the work environment is a private home. This paper presents the process evaluation for a proof-of-concept safety intervention study to assess whether nurse-led safety coaching, using motivational interviewing and a safety handbook, could enable HC clients to improve safety in their homes. The process evaluation objectives were to (i) document the intervention's implementation progress and (ii) assess the intervention's dose delivery, dose reception, and fidelity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRetention of the home care (HC) aide workforce is essential to meet the needs of our aging population. Some studies suggest that improving HC safety could increase job retention. This study objective was to explore qualitatively the connection between aide and client safety and factors impacting this care relationship.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Home care (HC) aide is among the fastest-growing jobs. Aides often work in long-term care relationships with elders or people with disabilities in clients' homes, assisting with daily activities. The purpose of this mixed-methods paper is to elucidate aides' experiences around the boundary-challenging behaviors of clients asking for services beyond aides' job duties and to identify possible interventions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: Violence from care recipients and family members, including both verbal and physical abuse, is a serious occupational hazard for healthcare and social assistance workers. Most workplace violence studies in this sector focus on hospitals and other institutional settings. This study examined verbal abuse in a large home care (HC) aide population and evaluated risk factors.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: Home care (HC) aides constitute an essential, rapidly growing workforce. Technology advances are enabling complex medical care at home, including procedures requiring the percutaneous use of sharp medical devices, also known as sharps. Objectives were to quantify risks of sharps injuries (SI) in a large HC aide population, compare risks between major occupational groups, and evaluate SI risk factors.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: In countries with ageing populations, home care (HC) aides are among the fastest growing jobs. There are few quantitative studies of HC occupational safety and health (OSH) conditions. The objectives of this study were to: (1) assess quantitatively the OSH hazards and benefits for a wide range of HC working conditions, and (2) compare OSH experiences of HC aides who are employed via different medical and social services systems in Massachusetts, USA.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe Safe Home Care Project investigated both qualitatively and quantitatively a range of occupational safety and health hazards, as well as injury and illness prevention practices, among home care aides in Massachusetts. This article reports on a hazard identified by aides during the study's initial focus groups: smoking by home care clients on long-term oxygen therapy. Following the qualitative phase we conducted a cross-sectional survey among 1,249 aides and found that medical oxygen was present in 9 percent of aide visits (314 of aides' 3,484 recent client visits) and that 25 percent of clients on oxygen therapy were described as smokers.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: We quantified risks of sharp medical device (sharps) injuries and other blood and body fluid exposures among home health care nurses and aides, identified risk factors, assessed the use of sharps with safety features, and evaluated underreporting in workplace-based surveillance.
Methods: We conducted a questionnaire survey and workplace-based surveillance, collaborating with 9 home health care agencies and 2 labor unions from 2006 to 2007.
Results: Approximately 35% of nurses and 6.