Development of a quality assurance model for older people’s care assistants
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Date
2010-05-19
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Thailand Nursing and Midwifery Council
Abstract
It was found that the characteristics of care assistant for older people consisted of 3 components; knowledge, attitude and practice. A quality assurance model for care assistants can be developed into 8 components; application, admission procedure, teaching and learning, management, financing and funding, graduators, follow-up system, and quality assurance system and methods, which includes internal and external assessment. Each component can be explained by means of 3 indicators: a descriptive indicator, a characteristic indicator and a quantitative indicator.The increasing need for care assistants for older people is a result of increasing numbers of older people in Thailand with chronic illnesses, who are disabled, dependent, and in need of long-term care, at the same time the family has less capacity to provide care. The lack of quality assurance and a follow up system could allow care assistants to function beyond the scope of their abilities. Therefore, a model of quality assurance for care assistants would be beneficial to ease this problem. Qualitative research was carried out with stakeholders who participated in 4 focus group discussions: academic professional organizations, educators and teachers, care assistants, and care receivers. Policy recommendations for the government are that they should support and monitor the quality of care assistant education and training, enact the related professional law, care assistant agency registration, improve care assistant curriculum standard, create continuing curriculum study, encourage qualified care assistant registration, classify level of care assistant and designate their practice restrictions. Practice recommendations would encourage schools for care assistants to apply this model in their institutions, support the establishment of an association for care assistants, and promote career development.
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Citation
Thai Journal of Nursing Council; Vol 25, No. 1 January-March 2010; 38-52