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A qualitative study of nursing assistants' awareness of person-centred approaches to dementia care

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 May 2015

PAULETTE V. HUNTER ,
THOMAS HADJISTAVROPOULOS  and
SHARON KAASALAINEN
PAULETTE V. HUNTER*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, St Thomas More College, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada.
THOMAS HADJISTAVROPOULOS
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology and Centre on Aging and Health, University of Regina, Canada.
SHARON KAASALAINEN
Affiliation:
School of Nursing, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada.
*
Address for correspondence: Paulette V. Hunter, Department of Psychology, St Thomas More College, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada, S7N 0W6. E-mail: phunter@stmcollege.ca
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Abstract

Recently, the number of education programmes addressing person-centred approaches to long-term residential dementia care has increased, and nursing assistants (NAs) are often the target audience. The effectiveness of employee education programmes is actively debated, and our objective is to contribute to this discussion by exploring the knowledge NAs acquire through practice. We examined approaches to person-centred care generated during a series of interviews with NAs, and compared these to the content of five frameworks for person-centred dementia care. Our results suggest that although NAs acquire significant knowledge about person-centred dementia care during the course of their work, application of person-centred care strategies varies across NAs. We propose ways of enhancing NA education in order to address gaps in knowledge. We also recommend sustained attention to organisational factors that contribute to variability in practice.

Keywords

long-term caredementianursing assistanteducationcontent analysisperson-centred care
Type
Articles
Information
Ageing & Society , Volume 36 , Issue 6 , July 2016 , pp. 1211 - 1237
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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