Caring for Older People during and beyond the COVID-19 Pandemic : Experiences of Residential Health Care Workers

Veronica Sze-Ki LAI, Sui-Yu YAU, Linda Yin-King LEE, Becky Siu-Yin LI, Susan Sin-Ping LAW, Shixin HUANG*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Journal PublicationsJournal Article (refereed)peer-review

4 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Older people and health care workers in residential care homes are particularly vulnerable to the adverse impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. As COVID-19 has been spreading around the world for more than two years, the nature of care delivery has been substantially transformed. This study aims at understanding the long-term and ongoing impacts of COVID-19 on the delivery of care in residential care homes. It investigates how the delivery of care has been transformed by the COVID-19 pandemic and how health care workers adapted to these changes from the perspectives of frontline health care workers. Semi-structured interviews were conducted from February to December 2021 with a purposive sample of 30 health care workers from six residential care homes in Hong Kong. Thematic analysis identified three themes, including (1) enhancing infection prevention and control measures; (2) maintaining the psychosocial wellbeing of residents; and (3) developing resilience. Discussions and implications were drawn from these findings.
Original languageEnglish
Article number15287
JournalInternational Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
Volume19
Issue number22
Early online date19 Nov 2022
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Nov 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
The work described in this paper was fully supported by a grant from the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China (UGC/FDS16/M12/20).

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 by the authors.

Keywords

  • COVID-19
  • long-term care facilities
  • health care workers
  • delivery of care
  • qualitative study

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