[Training of communication skills in stationary long care homes--the evaluation of a model project to develop communication skills and transfer it into practice].
The training of communication skills of professional caregivers in six homes for elderly people has been developed and evaluated in a model project. The purpose of the project was to strengthen the staff's orientation towards the residents, their needs, handicaps and abilities. Therefore, a series of 8 in-house training courses as well as procedures to establish the contents of the program into daily care-giving (transfer) have been developed and implemented with six teams during one year. The evaluation included interviews, questionnaires and observations and was realized with participants and non-participants of the program once before the implementation of the training program and once afterwards. We found evidence for positive effects of the training: although the staff's positive self perception of the climate of communication remained stable and mainly not affected by the training, this was contradictory to the observations. The way of giving information to the residents was improved by the training program as well as the quality of relations between staff and residents. Again, sending messages about oneself which are not care-oriented had not been affected by the training-as to the observations of care giving situations. Although the staff's self perception about the change of sending these messages was highly positive.Thus, the further development of the training program has to consider these effects.To establish the transfer of the training program into daily care giving, it proved to be helpful to specify exercises after each session which had to be carried out and discussed by the participants until the next training session.
Heinemann-Knoch
M
M
Institut für Gerontologische Forschung e. V., Torstr. 178, 10115 Berlin, Germany. igfheinemann@t-online.de
Korte
E
E
Heusinger
J
J
Klünder
M
M
Knoch
T
T
D000203:Activities of Daily Living / Q000145:classification; D000368:Aged; D002983:Clinical Competence; D003142:Communication; D003147:Communication Disorders / Q000451:nursing*; D003220:Conflict, Psychological; D003479:Curriculum; D034462:Dissent and Disputes; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006707:Homes for the Aged; D006801:Humans; D007318:Inservice Training; D007400:Interprofessional Relations; D008134:Long-Term Care; D009723:Nurse-Patient Relations; D009735:Nursing Homes; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care; D010348:Patient Care Team; D015397:Program Evaluation; D014163:Transfer, Psychology