Capabilities, opportunities and motivations of staff to provide hearing support to long-term care home residents with dementia.

Objective: Many long-term care home (LTCH) residents have dementia and hearing loss, causing communication difficulties and agitation. Residents rely on staff for hearing support, but provision is often inconsistent. This study used the Behaviour Change Wheel's Capability, Opportunity and Motivation model to understand why LTCH staff do or do not, provide hearing support to residents with dementia who they believe could benefit from it.

Design: An online survey exploring hearing support provision, capabilities, opportunities, motivations and demographics. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, within-participants ANOVA and multiple linear regression.

Study Sample: 165 LTCH staff.

Results: Staff provided hearing support to 50% of residents with dementia who they thought would benefit. Self-reported physical and psychological capabilities (skills/knowledge) were significantly higher than physical opportunity (having time/resources). The physical capability was significantly higher than social opportunity (collaborative working) and reflective motivation (feeling motivated). Lower levels of hearing support provision were predicted by LTCH funding (private vs. local authority), job role (care assistant vs. nurse) and fewer physical opportunities.

Conclusions: Boosting capabilities through training alone may not be as effective as increasing opportunities via environmental restructuring. Opportunities may include strengthening working relationships with audiologists and ensuring hearing and communication aids are available within LTCHs.