Effects of a psycho-educational intervention on direct care workers’ communicative behaviours with residents with dementia

Abstract

This study assessed the effects of a person-centred care based psycho-educational intervention on direct care workers’ communicative behaviours with people with dementia living in aged care facilities. An experimental study with a pre-posttest control group design was conducted in four aged care facilities. Two experimental facilities received an eight-weekly psycho-educational intervention aiming to develop workers’ knowledge about dementia, person-centred care competences and tools for stress management; control facilities received an education-only, with no support to deal with stress. A total of 332 morning care sessions, involving fifty-six direct care workers (female, mean age 44.72±9.02), were video-recorded before and two weeks after the intervention The frequency and duration of a list of verbal and non-verbal communicative behaviours were analysed. Within the experimental group there was a positive change from pre to post-test on the frequency of all workers’ communicative behaviours. Significant treatment effects in favour of the experimental group were obtained for the frequency of inform (p<0.01, ƞ2partial=0.09) and laugh (p<0.01, ƞ2 partial=0.18). Differences between groups emerged mainly in relation to non-verbal communicative behaviours. The findings suggest that a person-centred care based psycho-educational intervention can positively affect the direct care workers’ communicative behaviours with residents with dementia. Further research is required to determine the extent of the benefits of this approach.