Protecting workers in the home care industry: workers’ experienced job demands, resource gaps, and benefits following a socially supportive intervention

ABSTRACT

The Community of Practice and Safety Support (COMPASS) program is a peer-led group intervention for home care workers. In a randomized controlled trial, COMPASS significantly improved workers’ professional support networks and safety and health behaviors. However, quantitative findings failed to capture workers’ complex emotional, physical, and social experiences with job demands, resource limitations, and the intervention itself. Therefore, we conducted qualitative follow-up interviews with a sample of participants (n = 28) in the program. Results provided examples of unique physical and psychological demands, revealed stressful resource limitations (e.g., safety equipment access), and elucidated COMPASS’s role as a valuable resource.

KEYWORDS:

• Caregiving work issues
• home care
• safety
• health promotion
• well-being
• job demands
• resources
• social support

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Diane Elliot for her wonderful contributions as a co-Investigator in the development and empirical phases of the COMPASS research program, and to the plans for the current qualitative project. The “Fruits & Vegetables” and “Jeopardy” activities of COMPASS workbook 1 were developed by Diane Elliot, MD, Kerry Keuhl, MD, and Linn Goldberg, MD, Division of Health Promotion and Sports Medicine, OHSU. We would like to thank Annie Buckmaster and Bradley Wipfli for their contributions to the original development and evaluation of COMPASS. We thank Leslie Houston, Shana Garvey, Gregg Ruskusky, Sara Reed, and Marilyn Miller for organizing or facilitating the five groups studied in the current project. We are grateful to leaders at the Oregon Home Care Commission and the Service Employees International Union Local 503 for their long-standing commitment to the success of the research and to advancing the well-being of Oregon’s home care workers. Finally, we acknowledge the home care workers who volunteered for interviews and shared their experiences, emotions, and opinions with us in the service of science and their fellow caregivers.

Decleration of interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) as part of the Oregon Healthy Workforce Center, a NIOSH Center of Excellence in Total Worker Health® under grant U19OH010154.