Organizational Commitment Among Long-Term Care Staff

Organizational commitment among residential care workers

The growth of the older adult population and documented demand of health, allied health, and social care professionals contrast starkly with the reality that the eldercare field, including care organizations, struggle to attract and retain committed workers. Extant studies evaluate organizational capacity to engender commitment by examining various job and workplace factors. Drawing on 44 interviews, observations of 62 meetings, and a 5-year immersion, this organizational ethnography looks at commitment factors at a large, urban, faith-based residential senior care organization. Commitment factors are delineated on three levels such as daily tensions and rewards, value-based tensions and rewards, deal breakers and clinchers. Identity-based factors such as affective bonds with older persons and sharing in faith values sustain commitment on the person level whereas interprofessional tensions may detract from commitment. This study extends the knowledge base by incorporating perspectives of care workers such as social workers, chaplains, rehabilitation, recreational, diet and environmental services workers in addition to the more commonly examined groups such as nurses and certified nursing assistants, and in a setting that includes Assisted Living in addition to long-term care.

Innovation to enhance health in care homes and evaluation of tools for measuring outcomes of care: rapid evidence synthesis

Background

Flexible, integrated models of service delivery are being developed to meet the changing demands of an ageing population. To underpin the spread of innovative models of care across the NHS, summaries of the current research evidence are needed. This report focuses exclusively on care homes and reviews work in four specific areas, identified as key enablers for the NHS England vanguard programme.

Aim

To conduct a rapid synthesis of evidence relating to enhancing health in care homes across four key areas: technology, communication and engagement, workforce and evaluation.

Objectives

(1) To map the published literature on the uses, benefits and challenges of technology in care homes; flexible and innovative uses of the nursing and support workforce to benefit resident care; communication and engagement between care homes, communities and health-related organisations; and approaches to the evaluation of new models of care in care homes. (2) To conduct rapid, systematic syntheses of evidence to answer the following questions. Which technologies have a positive impact on resident health and well-being? How should care homes and the NHS communicate to enhance resident, family and staff outcomes and experiences? Which measurement tools have been validated for use in UK care homes? What is the evidence that staffing levels (i.e. ratio of registered nurses and support staff to residents or different levels of support staff) influence resident outcomes?

Data sources

Searches of MEDLINE, CINAHL, Science Citation Index, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, DARE (Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects) and Index to Theses. Grey literature was sought via Google™ (Mountain View, CA, USA) and websites relevant to each individual search.

Design

Mapping review and rapid, systematic evidence syntheses.

Setting

Care homes with and without nursing in high-income countries.

Review methods

Published literature was mapped to a bespoke framework, and four linked rapid critical reviews of the available evidence were undertaken using systematic methods. Data were not suitable for meta-analysis, and are presented in narrative syntheses.

Results

Seven hundred and sixty-one studies were mapped across the four topic areas, and 65 studies were included in systematic rapid reviews. This work identified a paucity of large, high-quality research studies, particularly from the UK. The key findings include the following. (1) Technology: some of the most promising interventions appear to be games that promote physical activity and enhance mental health and well-being. (2) Communication and engagement: structured communication tools have been shown to enhance communication with health services and resident outcomes in US studies. No robust evidence was identified on care home engagement with communities. (3) Evaluation: 6 of the 65 measurement tools identified had been validated for use in UK care homes, two of which provide general assessments of care. The methodological quality of all six tools was assessed as poor. (4) Workforce: joint working within and beyond the care home and initiatives that focus on staff taking on new but specific care tasks appear to be associated with enhanced outcomes. Evidence for staff taking on traditional nursing tasks without qualification is limited, but promising.

Limitations

This review was restricted to English-language publications after the year 2000. The rapid methodology has facilitated a broad review in a short time period, but the possibility of omissions and errors cannot be excluded.

Conclusions

This review provides limited evidential support for some of the innovations in the NHS vanguard programme, and identifies key issues and gaps for future research and evaluation.

Future work

Future work should provide high-quality evidence, in particular experimental studies, economic evaluations and research sensitive to the UK context.

Study registration

This study is registered as PROSPERO CRD42016052933, CRD42016052933, CRD42016052937 and CRD42016052938.

Funding

The National Institute for Health Research Health Services and Delivery Research programme.

Who Is Likely to Commit to a Career With Older Adults?

Gerontology, as an academic discipline, provides professionals with the conceptual knowledge and the skills necessary to address the complexities of working with a diverse aging population. We know little about what attracts professionals to the aging field and what maintains commitment to these careers. The aim of this study was to investigate the roles of career motivation, job satisfaction, anxiety about aging, and professional identity in relation to career commitment among those working with older adults. Participants (N = 756) were recruited through organizations and institutions serving older adults and responded to an online survey. Participants' motivation for working with older adults, level of job satisfaction, and exposure to formal gerontological education significantly predicted career commitment. In addition, aging anxiety mediated the relationship between job satisfaction and career commitment. This study sheds lights on perspectives of professionals working with older adults and highlights areas for future gerontological research and training.

Affective Organizational Commitment in Swiss Nursing Homes: A Cross-Sectional Study

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

This substudy of the Swiss Nursing Homes Human Resources Project (SHURP) explored the relationships between affective organizational commitment (AOC) levels and organizational, situational, and care personnel characteristics, and between AOC and care personnel outcomes.

DESIGNS AND METHODS

SHURP was a representative national cross-sectional study in 163 Swiss nursing homes. Its data sources were: (a) a care personnel questionnaire, (b) a facility questionnaire, (c) a unit questionnaire, and (d) administrative resident data. Generalized estimating equations (GEEs) were applied to examine AOC's relationships with selected antecedents and care personnel outcomes.

RESULTS

Data were collected from 5,323 care personnel in 163 nursing homes (return rate: 76%). On a scale from 1 to 5, the mean level of AOC was 3.86 (standard deviation = 0.81). Variations in AOC regarding care personnel characteristics (age, education, and experience in nursing home) and organizational characteristics (size, profit status) were statistically significant with minimal effect sizes. The main factors positively related to AOC were leadership, job satisfaction, quality of care, and collaboration with the nursing home director. Care personnel outcomes significantly related to higher AOC were reduced intention to leave, health complaints, presenteeism, and absenteeism.

IMPLICATIONS

As leadership is a crucial factor of AOC, its development might improve care personnel outcomes such as intention to leave or absenteeism.