Factors affecting the interest of rehabilitation professionals indirectly supporting preventive care projects

Abstract

To identify the factors affecting the interest of rehabilitation professionals who indirectly support preventive care projects. [Participants and Methods] Rehabilitation professionals (physical therapists, occupational therapists, and speech-language-hearing therapists) working in 617 hospitals and other health facilities in A Prefecture, Japan. On the basis of their degree of interest in the activities of their respective preventive care projects, the professionals were classified into three groups after evaluating their responses to a self-reporting questionnaire (1,851 parts in total). The subsequent comparisons were performed among the three groups and their responses to the remaining questions.[Results] Analysis of the responses provided by 354 of the 374 rehabilitation professionals who answered the questionnaire revealed the following factors affecting their degree of interest in the preventive care projects indirectly supported by them: advanced age; abundant years of experience practicing; being speech-language-hearing-therapists; experience in post-graduate training; and considering the scope of support as a part of the community. Furthermore, the vast majority of individuals in the group showing superior interest had experience in activities related to indirect support. [Conclusion] Confirmation of the extent to which indirect support by rehabilitation professionals is effective for preventive care services is essential, since such support is difficult to demonstrate, unlike direct support.

Effectiveness of a rehabilitation professional’s advice and suggestions on a care manager’s self-assessment scores of their care management

“…The survey respondents were care managers of home care support offices in nine randomly selected municipalities. The criteria of selection of municipalities involved classifying all 1,724 municipalities into designated cities (20), core cities (62), and other general cities and towns (1,642) 21) , and randomly selecting three municipalities from each category using the RAND function in Microsoft Excel. Thereafter, for each selected city and town, we mailed three copies of the questionnaire to all 1,232 home care support offices registered in WAM-NET and asked for their responses.…”

“…In addition, the Japan Occupational Therapists Association, in the 2012 fiscal year project for health promotion among older adults, “Verification project on the collaboration effect between care managers and occupational therapists in supporting improvement of daily activities” 13 ) , assessed the collaboration effect between occupational therapists and care managers 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 ) . Furthermore, at the level of each local government’s efforts, support effects for care management by rehabilitation professionals through advice and so on are expected through accompanying visits with care managers and participation in community care conference using general long-term care prevention projects “Community Rehabilitation Activity Support Projects” 18 , 19 , 20 ) . However, although the importance of support for care management from the perspective of “independent support” by rehabilitation professionals is recognized as described above, there is no research that statistically verifies how such advice or suggestions from rehabilitation professionals affect care management.…”