A Study of How Long-Term Caretakers Maintain Residents’ Privacy

[[abstract]]As Taiwan’s population of elderly residents grows rapidly, the demand for related medical services has been on the rise. Among these, professional nursing and caretaking personnel make up the majority of the long-term caregiver force. However, the intensity of demand, long working hours and high staff turnover rates have posed a serious threat to both the quality of professional caretaking in organizations and to residents’ privacy. The objective of this study is to explore how long-term caretakers view the privacy of their charges. In addition, it will probe how the nature of different kinds of long-term caretaking affects the way staff maintain this privacy. This research has adopted a cross-sectional study judging sampling method and targeted long-term caretakers at 14 organizations in central Taiwan. Opportunity Algorithm Analysis and PASW18.0 were utilized to conduct descriptive statistics, independent samples t test, one way analysis of variance and multiple regression analysis. Study results showed that although long-term caretakers placed the highest value on maintaining physical privacy, this was the hardest aspect to practice, making it one of the crucial factors in regard to organizations’ maintenance of privacy. This in turn demonstrates that such data can become a force toward quality improvements. This study also found that the value caretaking staff placed on their charges’ privacy had a lot to do with wages, working hours and the benefits provided by their organizations. It’s clear that Opportunity Algorithm Analysis can help locate areas of assistance that staff members are most in need of in their work. It also suggests that management staff in these organizations can implement a reward system to encourage caretakers to raise privacy standards, utilizing existing resources within the organizations