英文摘要 |
Background: Taiwan has a policy of supporting aging in place for its elderly. Day care is one of community-based services of long-term care in Taiwan. Nurse aides provide most of the cares at these day care centers, however, their training focuses on disability care, rather than on dementia care. Purpose: This study examined the effects of an educational program of dementia care on knowledge, attitude, and competence among nurse aides at 24 day care centers in Taiwan. Methods: An experimental two group pre-test and post-test research design was used. Participants included 24 matched experimental and comparison groups in Central and Southern Taiwan day care centers. Twenty nine participants in the experimental group participated in a 12-topic (20 hours) threedayeducational program on dementia care. Twenty four participants in the comparison group did not participate in the educational program. All participants were interviewed using three structured questionnaires prior to the intervention. The post-test was conducted 6 weeks after the intervention. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS Window version 20.0. Results: The research results showed that the educational program improved dementia care on knowledge of dementia among nurse aides in the experimental group (t = -2.12, p = .04). However, there was no significant mean difference on knowledge, attitude, and clinical competence of dementia care between the two groups of nurse aides post-test. Conclusions: After participating in the dementia care educational program, the nurse aids demonstrated significantly improved dementia care knowledge. However, the lack of a significant difference between the two groups post-test suggests that there is an urgent need for further study regarding course content, use of directional methods and timing of outcome measurements. |