| |
Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
 | |
|
| Professional perspectives on decision making about the long-term care of older people | | Author(s) | Brian J Taylor, Michael Donnelly |
| Journal title | British Journal of Social Work, vol 36, no 5, July 2006 |
| Pages | pp 807-826 |
| Source | http://bjsw.oxfordjournals.org |
| Keywords | Services ; Health services ; Long term ; At risk ; Evaluation ; Attitude ; Personnel ; Northern Ireland. |
| Annotation | With the increasing pressure on social and health care resources, professionals have to be more explicit in their decision-making regarding the long-term care of older people. This grounded theory study used 19 focus groups and 9 semi-structured interviews (96 staff in total) to explore professional perspectives on this decision making. Participants and interviewees comprised care managers, social workers, consultant geriatricians, general practitioners (GPs), occupational therapists and hospital discharge staff from 11 Trusts in Northern Ireland. The emerging themes spanned context, clients, families and services. Decisions were often prompted by a crisis, hindering professionals seeking to make a measured assessment. Fear of burglary and assault, and the willingness and availability of family to help were major factors in decisions about living at home. Service availability, in terms of public funding for community care, the availability of home care workers and workload pressures on primary care services influenced decision "thresholds" regarding admission to institutional care. Assessment tools designed to assist decision making about the long term care of older people need to take into account the critical aspects of individual fears and motivation, family support and the availability of publicly funded services as well as functional and medical needs. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-060918207 A |
| Classmark | I: L: 4Q: CA3: 4C: DP: QM: 9Y |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
|
| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
| |
|