Professional, friend or family?: How home care companies sell emotional care

ABSTRACT

While there is a growing literature on home care workers, less is known about how home care companies market their services. Through a content analysis of the 19 largest U.S. home care and home health providers’ websites, we examined how companies describe services, desired outcomes of care, and job responsibilities and qualifications. Companies actively market family-like relationships as central to “good care”. However, companies’ emphasis on unmeasurable skills such as compassion and warmth may also create exploitative work environments. Supporting “good care” requires improved data collection, industry oversight, and policy change to recognize socio-emotional care and protect a marginalized workforce.

KEYWORDS:

• Home care
• home health
• home health aides
• personal care

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Helen Cole, Janet Wiersema, and two anonymous reviewers for their invaluable and thoughtful feedback on earlier drafts of this paper, which helped to make this article stronger. The contents do not represent the views of the US Department of Veterans Affairs or the United States government.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Since the non-medical services provided by both types of companies are similar, in this paper we refer to the industry as a whole as “home care”. Similarly, since the formal job structure of HHAs, PCAs, caregivers and companions is so similar, we refer to these workers collectively as “aides”.

2. The contents do not represent the views of the US Department of Veterans Affairs or the United States government.