Older people’s views and expectations about the competences of health and social care professionals: a European qualitative study

Abstract

Adapting and providing quality services for people as they age is a common challenge across Europe. The perspective of older people is fundamental in a person-centred care approach. Expanding research at the European level that explicitly includes their views can offer a relevant contribution to the development of evidence-based guidelines that can be shared in education and training across health and social care professions. This study aimed to identify common meaningful dimensions of professional competence in health and social care emphasised by older people from six countries in different regions of Europe according to their experiences. A qualitative approach was chosen with a total of 95 semi-structured interviews conducted in Austria, Finland, Lithuania, Portugal, Turkey and UK, following a common topic guide. Participants in this study were aged 60 and above, and recruitment considered age, gender, level of education and living arrangements. Results identified a set of universal skills and practices that according to older people, health and social care professionals should meet. Competences at the interpersonal level were central in older people's discourses, and its core dimensions are anchored in relational, communication and socio-emotional skills of professionals. These findings reinforce the aspiration of establishing best practices in care that relies on the harmonisation of a competence framework that can be shared in the training and education of health and social care professionals across Europe and that voices older people's preferences, expectations and needs.

Reflections of older people about their experience of fall prevention exercise in the community- a qualitative study exploring evidence-based practice

“…Due to the increasing proportion of older people in society [ 1 ], efficient and effective evidence-based practice (EBP) strategies for managing fall prevention in primary health care are of great importance. Offering customized health services as people become older is a common challenge across Europe [ 2 ]. EBP aims to integrate the best available evidence, clinical expertise, and patient values into clinical practice to ensure positive patient outcomes [ 3 ], as illustrated in Fig.…”

Effectiveness of the Validation Method in Work Satisfaction and Motivation of Nursing Home Care Professionals: A Literature Review

“…This helps professionals to be more focused on the older person, on understanding the real needs that remain to be met and that give meaning to their behaviour [ 2 , 5 , 51 ]. In this regard, there is also an increase in professional competence as there is greater positive management of the problem behaviours that arise in care, the building of a closer deeper and more empathetic relationship with the disoriented person, given that knowledge of the meaning of their behaviour is increased, and care is based on the life history and personal needs of the resident [ 2 , 5 , 16 , 18 , 21 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 30 , 33 , 52 ].…”

“…In this regard, this review is necessary given the increase in interest to improve the quality of care, giving priority to humanisation and the implementation of the personcentred care model [1,18,33,34]. This study therefore aims to carry out a literature review on the effectiveness of VM in the job satisfaction and motivation of nursing home care professionals.…”

“…This methodology is linked to the need found in many residential centers to promote the development of professionals’ relational and socioemotional skills in order to improve positive and reciprocal relationships between them and the older people, which is a core aspect of care models like the well-known person-centred care model [ 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 ]. Furthermore, the VM has also shown benefits for professionals that are trained in and apply this method in terms of job satisfaction and motivation, as well as increasing their skills in relating and communicating with people with dementia or disoriented people [ 21 , 22 , 23 ].…”

Development and testing of an instrument (HeSoEduCo) for health and social care educators' competence in professional education

“…The cited report included stark warnings about difficulties in retaining an ageing health care population, workers taking other jobs, and failure to recruit and keep young people in the sector. At the same time there are growing needs for social care to support primary health care, especially for the elderly (Soares et al, 2018), as well as clients with chronic disease and/or critical social situations (Chapman et al, 2018). High turnover intentions were identified in the decreased interest of new health care workers to keep their demanding work.…”