A self -instructional behavior care planning training for geriatric nursing staff

Despite evidence of the effectiveness of applied behavior analysis (ABA) for treating behavior problems in elderly nursing home residents, staff responsible for the development of behavioral care plans may have little knowledge of ABA. Providing nursing staff with in-service training during working hours can be overly disruptive to the functioning of the nursing unit, and paying for nurses to attend training outside of regularly scheduled hours is cost-prohibitive to many geriatric care facilities. To examine a more cost effective alternative to traditional in-service training, a self-instructional training program was implemented with six nursing staff. A multiple baseline across subjects design was used to examine the effects of the training program on subjects\u27 ability to identify information important for the development of behavioral interventions, their general knowledge of behavior management, their self-reported attitudes towards elderly nursing home residents, and the frequency and type of their interactions with the residents of their unit. Findings revealed no practically significant changes in any of the dependent measures as a result of the self-instructional training program. The results indicated ways in which the training program could be improved