Personal Assistants' role in infection prevention and control: Their experiences during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Health Soc Care Community
; 30(5): e1926-e1934, 2022 09.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1501409
ABSTRACT
Personal Assistants (PA) or client-hired workers are directly employed by people needing care and support, often making use of government funding. In the context of Covid-19, questions emerged about how this workforce is supported to practice safely. This paper reports PAs' understanding and views of infection control during the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic in England. Telephone interviews were undertaken with 41 PAs between 16th April and 21st May 2020. PAs were recruited from a sample that had participated in a previous study in 2014-16. Interview questions focused on changes arising from the pandemic. Data were transcribed and analysed using Framework analysis. This paper focuses on PAs' perceptions of their role and responsibilities in preventing and managing infection. Arising themes were identified about barriers and facilitators affecting infection control in five areas accessing information, social isolation, handwashing, hygiene, personal protective equipment and potential attitude to vaccines. Infection prevention and control are under-researched in the home care sector generally and efforts are needed to develop knowledge of how to manage infection risks in home settings by non-clinically trained staff such as PAs and how to engage home care users with these efforts, especially when they are the direct employers.
Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
COVID-19
Type of study:
Prognostic study
/
Qualitative research
Topics:
Vaccines
Limits:
Humans
Country/Region as subject:
Europa
Language:
English
Journal:
Health Soc Care Community
Journal subject:
Social Sciences
/
Social Medicine
/
Health Services
Year:
2022
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Hsc.13624
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