Emma K Tsui1, Wei-Qian Wang2, Emily Franzosa1, Tailisha Gonzalez1, Jennifer M Reckrey3, Madeline R Sterling4, Sherry Baron5. 1. Department of Community Health and Social Sciences, Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy, City University of New York, New York, New York, USA. 2. Department of Counseling and Clinical Psychology, Columbia University, New York, New York, USA. 3. Departments of Medicine and Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York, USA. 4. Division of General Internal Medicine, Department of Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, New York, USA. 5. Barry Commoner Center for Health and the Environment, Queens College, City University of New York, Flushing, New York, USA.
Abstract
Background: Home care workers (HCWs)-including home health aides, personal care aides, and other direct care workers-provide functional and other essential support that allows older, disabled, and seriously ill people to live at home. As a growing number of patients are aging and dying at home, HCWs are increasingly providing care at the end of life (EOL). Although prior qualitative studies have shown that patient death is an impactful and challenging experience for HCWs, the majority of HCWs receive almost no training on EOL issues. Objective: The goal of this scoping review is to identify intervention studies describing training of HCWs in EOL issues to map types of training and to assess the degree to which existing efforts address HCW health and well-being. Design: Our scoping review covered three databases and focused on articles published in English since 2000. Results: Of the 393 articles screened, 26 underwent full-text review and 6 met inclusion criteria. Only one article discussed training designed for and implemented with HCWs exclusively. Other trainings simultaneously targeted multiple kinds of workers. Supporting HCWs in reducing their stress and improving their coping skills was substantially addressed in only one article, although HCWs' emotional needs were addressed less centrally in several others. Conclusion: Our findings suggest that there is a paucity of EOL training interventions tailored specifically to the experiences and positioning of HCWs. We recommend that future intervention studies address the multiple facets of HCWs' stress related to patient death to improve EOL care in the home.
Background: Home care workers (HCWs)-including home health aides, personal care aides, and other direct care workers-provide functional and other essential support that allows older, disabled, and seriously ill people to live at home. As a growing number of patients are aging and dying at home, HCWs are increasingly providing care at the end of life (EOL). Although prior qualitative studies have shown that patient death is an impactful and challenging experience for HCWs, the majority of HCWs receive almost no training on EOL issues. Objective: The goal of this scoping review is to identify intervention studies describing training of HCWs in EOL issues to map types of training and to assess the degree to which existing efforts address HCW health and well-being. Design: Our scoping review covered three databases and focused on articles published in English since 2000. Results: Of the 393 articles screened, 26 underwent full-text review and 6 met inclusion criteria. Only one article discussed training designed for and implemented with HCWs exclusively. Other trainings simultaneously targeted multiple kinds of workers. Supporting HCWs in reducing their stress and improving their coping skills was substantially addressed in only one article, although HCWs' emotional needs were addressed less centrally in several others. Conclusion: Our findings suggest that there is a paucity of EOL training interventions tailored specifically to the experiences and positioning of HCWs. We recommend that future intervention studies address the multiple facets of HCWs' stress related to patient death to improve EOL care in the home.
Entities:
Keywords:
EOL training; home care workers; scoping review; work stress