HELP ORIENTATIONS OF GERIATRIC NURSING CARE GIVERS (NURSING CARE).
Contributors: Case Western Reserve University.
Published: 1989
Number of pages: 240
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.
Description: The purpose of this study was to explore and define the subjective help orientations of nursing care givers who work with geriatric patients in home and institutional settings. The study was based on Brickman's theory that uses attribution of responsibility for cause and solution of problems and provides Moral, Enlightenment, Compensatory, and Medical Models of helping.

This multimethod study used a sample of 19 RN and 17 non-RN nursing care givers in nursing homes and 17 RN and 15 non-RN nursing care givers in home care programs. Data were collected by two questionnaires (Rabinowitz' Help Orientation Test and Revised Levy Questionnaire) and Q technique. Subjects based responses to the latter two measures on a vignette about an elderly person with multiple health problems. Data were collected from open-ended and close-ended questions as well as Q sort. Data were analyzed in terms of the responses of the total sample and of the four subgroups of subjects.

Pertinent findings included that (a) subjects' help orientation varied in response to different methods of measurement; (b) there were some differences in the help orientations of the four groups of subjects; and (c) the most frequently found help orientation was consistent with the Brickman Medical Model. In this help orientation model the helper attributes responsibility for neither cause nor solution to the help recipient.

From Q technique three factors, or descriptions, of help orientation were identified, namely, medical professionalism, skilled love, and skilled advocacy. A fourth factor, skilled advocacy, was found in the non-RN group employed in home care. These factors had both commonalities and differences with the Brickman theory.

Implications for nursing practice are discussed and include the possibility of nurses participating in helping-produced helplessness through the inappropriate use of the Medical Model.

Recommendations are made for further methodological study as well as further testing and refinement of the theory as it exists in nursing. Studies of the effect of help orientation on patient outcomes are also needed.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 50-07, Section: B, page: 2851.

Thesis (PH.D.)--CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY (HEALTH SCIENCES), 1989.

School code: 0499.