An Interdisciplinary Program for Enhance Nursing Home Residents Adjustment Experiences

Nursing home placement has been widely discussed in the literature as a stressful life event that challenges residents. Our previous findings revealed that nursing home residents had multidimensional dynamic living experiences that encompassed the interactions between self regulation and nursing home life (social interaction, safety, activities, and living arrangement). It is therefore a comprehensive program to enhance their adjustment experiences should both include increasing their self regulation ability and their nursing home life. The purpose of this study is to conduct a randomized trial in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the interdisciplinary intervention in improving nursing home residents’adaptation outcomes. This nursing home series research will be a two year, multi-stage study that seeks in building a comprehensive intervention program for enhancing nursing home residents’ adjustment experiences. In the first year, an interdisciplinary program which combined both implying a dignity therapy to increase their self regulate ability, and an internet videoconferencing program mainly to increase residents’ interaction with family will be developed. The first year study has funded by NSC 96-2314-B-182-028. Based on the preliminary finding of our qualitative research results in first year, this would be a feasible intervention program. Therefore, a cluster randomized trail will be used to evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention program in the year we are applying. The researchers will randomly assign the intervention program (dignity therapy and teleconference program), and two control groups (chat program group and just routine care group) to the selected wards at large size nursing homes in considering cost effect. Participants who meet the sample criteria will be recruited and assigned to the selected groups. The instruments used in this study will be grouped into a) self regulation ability, b) social environment, and c) adaptive outcome to evaluate the effective of this intervention. Findings of this study can provide guidelines for development of intervention programs for enhancing residents’ adjustment outcome in nursing home in Taiwan.

Project ID:PC9709-1226
External Project ID:NSC97-2314-B182-018