Care assistant experiences of dementia care in long-term nursing and residential care environments



Talbot, Rebecca and Brewer, Gayle ORCID: 0000-0003-0690-4548
(2016) Care assistant experiences of dementia care in long-term nursing and residential care environments. Dementia, 15 (6). pp. 1737-1754.

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Abstract

Care assistants have a unique insight into the lives of service users and those factors which may impede or enhance the delivery of high quality dementia oriented care. To address the paucity of research in this area, the present study examined care assistant experiences of dementia care in British long-term residential and nursing environments. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight care assistants and transcripts were analysed using interpretive phenomenological analysis. Super-ordinate themes emerging from the data were psychological wellbeing of the care assistant, barriers to effective dementia care, the dementia reality and organisational issues within the care environment. The study revealed important deficiencies in understanding and varying levels of dementia training. Whilst person centred strategies were being implemented, task orientated care remained dominant. Furthermore, care assistants reported taking the perspectives of those with dementia into account, and actively using these to develop relationship centred care.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: care assistants, dementia, interpretive phenomenological analysis, relationships, residential care
Depositing User: Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited: 22 Aug 2018 08:44
Last Modified: 19 Jan 2023 01:26
DOI: 10.1177/1471301215576416
Related URLs:
URI: https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3025388