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Time for Caring? Elderly care employees’ occupational activities in the cross draft between their work priorities, “must-do’s” and meaningfulness.

Nilsson, Emma LU and Nilsson, Kerstin LU orcid (2017) In International Journal of Care Coordination 20(1-2). p.8-16
Abstract
An increasing number of older people in the population will bring new challenges for the society and care coordination. One of the most important questions in care coordination is the employees’ work performance. The overall aim of this study was to examine care employees’ experience of factors that rule how they allocate their time and tasks in the care work. The study was qualitative and consists of focus group interviews with 36 employees in elderly care in five Swedish municipalities. Much of the work that care employees perform is controlled by others in the municipality organised health care. The employees had a limited possibility to decide what should be given priority in their work. However, the employees who participated in the... (More)
An increasing number of older people in the population will bring new challenges for the society and care coordination. One of the most important questions in care coordination is the employees’ work performance. The overall aim of this study was to examine care employees’ experience of factors that rule how they allocate their time and tasks in the care work. The study was qualitative and consists of focus group interviews with 36 employees in elderly care in five Swedish municipalities. Much of the work that care employees perform is controlled by others in the municipality organised health care. The employees had a limited possibility to decide what should be given priority in their work. However, the employees who participated in the focus group interviews did not want to prioritise tasks and duties they felt were faulty or in direct conflict with their own convictions. When employees experienced that the assistance assessments were correct and helpful to the individual elderly patient this contributed to the employees’ priority and performance of the task. The formal and informal control systems caused the employees’ priority to be mainly quantitative and visible work tasks, rather than more qualitative tasks and care giving to the elderly. In the intention to organise good care coordination that fit each elderly patients’ need it is important that those who work closest to the patient to a greater extent are given the opportunity to make their voice heard in decisions of care planning and assistance assessments.
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author
and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
in
International Journal of Care Coordination
volume
20
issue
1-2
pages
8 - 16
publisher
SAGE Publications
external identifiers
  • scopus:85020847508
ISSN
2053-4345
DOI
10.1177/2053434517705968
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
7e853710-0176-4a63-b617-2ce9c67db520
date added to LUP
2017-06-27 15:24:38
date last changed
2022-02-22 03:47:00
@article{7e853710-0176-4a63-b617-2ce9c67db520,
  abstract     = {{An increasing number of older people in the population will bring new challenges for the society and care coordination. One of the most important questions in care coordination is the employees’ work performance. The overall aim of this study was to examine care employees’ experience of factors that rule how they allocate their time and tasks in the care work. The study was qualitative and consists of focus group interviews with 36 employees in elderly care in five Swedish municipalities. Much of the work that care employees perform is controlled by others in the municipality organised health care. The employees had a limited possibility to decide what should be given priority in their work. However, the employees who participated in the focus group interviews did not want to prioritise tasks and duties they felt were faulty or in direct conflict with their own convictions. When employees experienced that the assistance assessments were correct and helpful to the individual elderly patient this contributed to the employees’ priority and performance of the task. The formal and informal control systems caused the employees’ priority to be mainly quantitative and visible work tasks, rather than more qualitative tasks and care giving to the elderly. In the intention to organise good care coordination that fit each elderly patients’ need it is important that those who work closest to the patient to a greater extent are given the opportunity to make their voice heard in decisions of care planning and assistance assessments.<br/>}},
  author       = {{Nilsson, Emma and Nilsson, Kerstin}},
  issn         = {{2053-4345}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  number       = {{1-2}},
  pages        = {{8--16}},
  publisher    = {{SAGE Publications}},
  series       = {{International Journal of Care Coordination}},
  title        = {{Time for Caring? Elderly care employees’ occupational activities in the cross draft between their work priorities, “must-do’s” and meaningfulness.}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/2053434517705968}},
  doi          = {{10.1177/2053434517705968}},
  volume       = {{20}},
  year         = {{2017}},
}