ABSTRACT
Certified nursing assistants (CNAS) provide the hands-on care to residents in nursing homes, often developing close relationships with those in their care. The current study used a support program model to explore CNAS' feelings, experiences, and needs when caring for the dying. Special attention was given to the experience of caring for residents who opted not to continue life-sustaining treatment. Second, the efficacy of this type of support program for CNAS was examined. Care of the dying elicited complex reactions: most CNAS reported that caring for dying residents can be a very rewarding experience. At the same time, most thought that caring for a dying person is always emotionally draining. Moreover, CNAS said they felt sad and felt stressed at least some of the time when caring for the dying. CNAS participated openly in the discussion and expressed positive feelings about participating in this type of support program.
Subject(s)
Nursing Assistants , Nursing Homes , Terminal Care , Aged , Attitude of Health Personnel , Emotions , Humans , Nursing Assistants/psychology , Self-Help Groups , Terminal Care/psychologyABSTRACT
Incident review (IR) is a process for achieving a better understanding of problems related to the health and safety of clients and the integrity of healthcare facilities. The IR process ensures that the quality and the performance of care in a facility continue to be maintained and improved over time. Because of the practical realities of administrative and clinical care issues, the process of implementing IR and related interventions is often challenging. This paper examines the IR process and the barriers that affect and impede it.
Subject(s)
Quality Assurance, Health Care/organization & administration , Risk Management/organization & administration , Documentation , Education, Continuing , Efficiency, Organizational , Institutional Management Teams , Leadership , Organizational Objectives , United StatesABSTRACT
This study examined the effects of list-making, and specific aspects of list-making such as intent (whether one expects to refer back to one's list at the time of recall) and organization, on memory performance in young and old adults. Young and old adults were randomly assigned to a list-making or a non-list-making condition. In both conditions, subjects performed two memory tasks in which they were presented with a word list followed by written recall and recognition tests. On one task, subjects were informed that they would not be allowed to refer to the list at the time of testing (internal-intent). On the other task, subjects were informed that they would be allowed to refer back to the list (external-intent), but actually were not allowed to. Planned comparisons found that list-making significantly improved older adults' performance on the recall tasks. Additionally, while the old performed significantly worse than the young in the non-list-making internal-intent recall task (the traditional memory test condition), these significant differences were not found on either of the list-making recall tasks. Both young and old list-makers who spontaneously organized their lists while studying the words recalled more items than subjects who did not organize their lists. These findings suggest future directions for both theoretical and applied research in the area of memory and aging.
