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The work pattern of personal care workers in two Australian nursing homes: a time-motion study
BACKGROUND: The aim of the study is to describe the work pattern of personal care workers (PCWs) in nursing homes. This knowledge is important for staff performance appraisal, task allocation and scheduling. It will also support funding allocation based on activities. METHODS: A time-motion study wa...
Autores principales: | , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2012
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3470967/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22953995 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1472-6963-12-305 |
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author | Qian, Si-Yu Yu, Ping Zhang, Zhen-Yu Hailey, David M Davy, Pamela J Nelson, Mark I |
author_facet | Qian, Si-Yu Yu, Ping Zhang, Zhen-Yu Hailey, David M Davy, Pamela J Nelson, Mark I |
author_sort | Qian, Si-Yu |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: The aim of the study is to describe the work pattern of personal care workers (PCWs) in nursing homes. This knowledge is important for staff performance appraisal, task allocation and scheduling. It will also support funding allocation based on activities. METHODS: A time-motion study was conducted in 2010 at two Australian nursing homes. The observation at Site 1 was between the hours of 7:00 and 14:00 or 15:00 for 14 days. One PCW was observed on each day. The observation at Site 2 was from 10:00 to 17:00 for 16 days. One PCW working on a morning shift and another one working on an afternoon shift were observed on each day. Fifty-eight work activities done by PCWs were grouped into eight categories. Activity time, frequency, duration and the switch between two consecutive activities were used as measurements to describe the work pattern. RESULTS: Personal care workers spent about 70.0% of their time on four types of activities consistently at both sites: direct care (30.7%), indirect care (17.6%), infection control (6.4%) and staff break (15.2%). Oral communication was the most frequently observed activity. It could occur independently or concurrently with other activities. At Site 2, PCWs spent significantly more time than their counterparts at Site 1 on oral communication (Site 1: 47.3% vs. Site 2: 63.5%, P = 0.003), transit (Site 1: 3.4% vs. Site 2: 5.5%, P < 0.001) and others (Site 1: 0.5% vs. Site 2: 1.8%, P < 0.001). They spent less time on documentation (Site 1: 4.1% vs. Site 2: 2.3%, P < 0.001). More than two-thirds of the observed activities had a very short duration (1 minute or less). Personal care workers frequently switched within or between oral communication, direct and indirect care activities. CONCLUSIONS: At both nursing homes, direct care, indirect care, infection control and staff break occupied the major part of a PCW’s work, however oral communication was the most time consuming activity. Personal care workers frequently switched between activities, suggesting that looking after the elderly in nursing homes is a busy and demanding job. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-3470967 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2012 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-34709672012-10-16 The work pattern of personal care workers in two Australian nursing homes: a time-motion study Qian, Si-Yu Yu, Ping Zhang, Zhen-Yu Hailey, David M Davy, Pamela J Nelson, Mark I BMC Health Serv Res Research Article BACKGROUND: The aim of the study is to describe the work pattern of personal care workers (PCWs) in nursing homes. This knowledge is important for staff performance appraisal, task allocation and scheduling. It will also support funding allocation based on activities. METHODS: A time-motion study was conducted in 2010 at two Australian nursing homes. The observation at Site 1 was between the hours of 7:00 and 14:00 or 15:00 for 14 days. One PCW was observed on each day. The observation at Site 2 was from 10:00 to 17:00 for 16 days. One PCW working on a morning shift and another one working on an afternoon shift were observed on each day. Fifty-eight work activities done by PCWs were grouped into eight categories. Activity time, frequency, duration and the switch between two consecutive activities were used as measurements to describe the work pattern. RESULTS: Personal care workers spent about 70.0% of their time on four types of activities consistently at both sites: direct care (30.7%), indirect care (17.6%), infection control (6.4%) and staff break (15.2%). Oral communication was the most frequently observed activity. It could occur independently or concurrently with other activities. At Site 2, PCWs spent significantly more time than their counterparts at Site 1 on oral communication (Site 1: 47.3% vs. Site 2: 63.5%, P = 0.003), transit (Site 1: 3.4% vs. Site 2: 5.5%, P < 0.001) and others (Site 1: 0.5% vs. Site 2: 1.8%, P < 0.001). They spent less time on documentation (Site 1: 4.1% vs. Site 2: 2.3%, P < 0.001). More than two-thirds of the observed activities had a very short duration (1 minute or less). Personal care workers frequently switched within or between oral communication, direct and indirect care activities. CONCLUSIONS: At both nursing homes, direct care, indirect care, infection control and staff break occupied the major part of a PCW’s work, however oral communication was the most time consuming activity. Personal care workers frequently switched between activities, suggesting that looking after the elderly in nursing homes is a busy and demanding job. BioMed Central 2012-09-06 /pmc/articles/PMC3470967/ /pubmed/22953995 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1472-6963-12-305 Text en Copyright ©2012 Qian et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Qian, Si-Yu Yu, Ping Zhang, Zhen-Yu Hailey, David M Davy, Pamela J Nelson, Mark I The work pattern of personal care workers in two Australian nursing homes: a time-motion study |
title | The work pattern of personal care workers in two Australian nursing homes: a time-motion study |
title_full | The work pattern of personal care workers in two Australian nursing homes: a time-motion study |
title_fullStr | The work pattern of personal care workers in two Australian nursing homes: a time-motion study |
title_full_unstemmed | The work pattern of personal care workers in two Australian nursing homes: a time-motion study |
title_short | The work pattern of personal care workers in two Australian nursing homes: a time-motion study |
title_sort | work pattern of personal care workers in two australian nursing homes: a time-motion study |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3470967/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22953995 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1472-6963-12-305 |
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