Abstract
The shortage of healthcare human resources is an important challenge for coping with the aging society in Macao. Since little attention has been paid to continuous education of healthcare assistants, this study aims to develop and evaluate a continuous education program, supporting the expansion and optimization of the competence of healthcare assistants. It is a cluster-randomized trial study. All healthcare assistants who were employed in nursing homes in Macao were eligible for this study. Six nursing homes were recruited and randomly assigned either an experimental group (3 nursing homes; 45 healthcare assistants) or a control group (3 nursing homes; 40 healthcare assistants). Healthcare assistants were assessed at baseline and after intervention with the Healthcare Assistants Care Knowledge Test and the Healthcare Assistants Care Competence Self-Assessment. The experimental group received a continuous education program with 10 themes during 2017–2018 while the control groups did not. The results of the generalized estimating equation showed that care knowledge in the experimental group was significantly different from that of the control group (Wald Chi Square = 3.848, p < 0.05) as well as care competence (Wald Chi Square = 13.361, p < 0.001). This study developed a continuous program for health assistants and provided evidence that continuous education programs improve and maintain the level of care knowledge and care competency of healthcare assistants.
Highlights
Facing an aging population and growth of chronic diseases, the demand for care is increasing with a shortage of health human resources; multiple-levels of the World HealthOrganization reported that a Skill Mix model has been widely adopted throughout many healthcare institutions [1]
In regards to continuing education for healthcare assistants in Macao, there are limited continuous education opportunities and career pathway development options; the purpose of this study is to develop and evaluate a continuous education program for healthcare assistants based on their care knowledge and competence
Of the ten nursing homes, four nursing homes declined to participate in the study; the remaining six nursing homes agreed to participate in the study
Summary
Facing an aging population and growth of chronic diseases, the demand for care is increasing with a shortage of health human resources; multiple-levels of the World HealthOrganization reported that a Skill Mix model has been widely adopted throughout many healthcare institutions [1]. Utilizing one of the nursing skill mix models as an example, professional health workers appoint and transfer jobs to non-professional healthcare workers to partially assist with care. This method can expand the accessibility of health services for the region, but it cannot improve health in a short period [3]. Registered nurses are responsible for assigning the appropriate nursing tasks to health auxiliaries, which should be based on the characteristics and complexity of care needs, limited nursing knowledge, skills, education, and experience; practical scope of health auxiliaries should be considered [4,5]. The competence and continuous education of health auxiliary personnel could not be ignored
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