Cooperative communication between families and nursing home staff

Description

Partners in Caregiving is a training program designed to increase cooperation and effective communication between family members and nursing home staff. Cornell researchers developed and evaluated the program, which includes two parallel six-hour workshops, one for nursing staff and the other for family members.

How to Use This Tool

Trainings focus on communication and conflict resolution skills. Participants in the randomized, controlled study included 932 relatives and 655 staff members from 20 nursing homes. Positive outcomes were found for both family and staff in the treatment group. In addition to improved attitudes toward each other, families of residents with dementia reported less conflict with staff and staff reported a lower likelihood of quitting. The control group, on the other hand, showed an increase in likelihood to quit over the same two-month period. Job burnout remained stable among the treatment group staff but increased in the control group over the study period. Though the focus of the intervention is not on direct care workforce retention, the findings seem promising for both improving worker-family relations and possibly for enhancing workers’ job commitment. Examining the effect of this intervention on turnover data, rather than just workers’ perceived intent to quit, would be a valuable addition to the evaluation of this program.

How to Obtain This Tool

To obtain the Partners in Caregiving manual, go to the Cornell Institute for Translational Research on Aging website, www.citra.org/wordpress.  The manual and other materials are available free of charge.  Train-the-trainer sessions can be arranged by contacting Rhoda Meador (see address below).

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