Figuring it out in the moment: Personal support workers' utilization of knowledge about person-centered care in dementia practice settings.
Published: 2006
Language: eng
Number of pages: 285
ISBN-13: 9780494219904
Description: The findings from this study enhance our understanding of how PSWs in Special Care Units make decisions about and act on knowledge related to person-centered care and how certain contextual, individual, and relational factors might influence these efforts. This understanding has practice and education implications for how we promote the best practice of PSWs in dementia care settings. The findings also have implications for theory and research which question how knowledge utilization is conceptualized and studied in relation to dementia care practice specifically, and health care practice overall.The purpose of this grounded theory study was to explore what influences Personal Support Workers (PSW) in institutional dementia care settings to utilize knowledge about person-centered care as a basis for their practice. Data were collected from 20 PSWs in Special Care Units across eight long-term care facilities through formal, semi-structured interviews and were simultaneously analyzed using the constant comparative method. The culmination of these investigative activities was a theory of the process by which PSWs utilize knowledge about person-centered care described as figuring it out in the moment.The theory of figuring it out in the moment suggests that PSWs in dementia care settings practice in a context of unpredictability, variability, and personal threat. Their use of knowledge about person-centered care in this context is dependent on the existence of certain individual and relational conditions. Individual conditions include PSWs' propensity for caring as well as their knowledge about Alzheimer Disease, their capacity to maintain composure in the face of anticipated or actual resident aggression, their flexibility and strength of perseverance, and their capacity to reframe practice challenges as opportunities for personal and professional growth. Relational conditions include collaborative peer relationships; opportunities to share and receive information about resident care from interdisciplinary team members; and acknowledgement and praise from team members, management, and residents' families. The process underlying the utilization of knowledge about person-centered care by PSWs is understood through the interrelationships amongst the various contextual, individual, and relational factors of influence and four separate but interconnected phases of PSW decision making and actions: the phases of Melding, Contextualizing, Trialing, and  Appraising.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 68-01, Section: B, page: 0207.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Toronto, 2006.

Electronic version licensed for access by U. of T. users.