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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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| Valuing the health of the support worker in the aged care sector | | Author(s) | Esther George, Leigh Hale, Jennifer Angelo |
| Journal title | Ageing and Society, vol 37, no 5, May 2017 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press, May 2017 |
| Pages | pp 1006-1024 |
| Source | cambridge.org/aso |
| Keywords | Care support workers ; Health [elderly] ; Mental health [elderly] ; Job satisfaction ; Qualitative Studies ; New Zealand. |
| Annotation | This New Zealand study explored aged care support workers' perceptions of how their health was influenced by their job, highlighting similarities and differences of those working in community-based and institution-based care. Support workers working in two institution-based and three community-based aged care organisations were invited to participate. Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with ten participants. Open-ended questions probed participants' perceptions of their health as it related to their work. Data were analysed with the General Inductive Approach. Four central themes were identified, many of which related to mental, as opposed to physical health. 'Love of the job' described various sources of satisfaction for participants. These factors commonly overrode the negative aspects. 'Stress' encompassed the negative influences on all aspects of health. 'Support' described the positive influences on health, which supported participants in their job. 'Physicality' described the physical nature of the job and the positive and negative impact this had on participants' health. Support workers perform numerous tasks, which often affect their health. Aspects of the job that may affect the health of the worker are improved communication and support from management, as well as recognition for support workers' contribution to society. These could be targeted to enhance support worker health. Additional training and reduced time pressure may also represent aspects for improvement, to optimise support workers' physical health. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-170421206 A |
| Classmark | QRS: CC: D: WL5: 3DP: 7YN |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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