Abstract
Background:
Compared with urban Australia, rural and remote areas have a proportionately higher aged population and greater challenges in sustaining a healthcare workforce. As part of a project exploring challenges to and opportunities for dementia care and support training in rural and remote Australia, we aimed to enhance existing knowledge from published literature and stakeholder group discussions by developing and circulating a survey instrument to investigate the perspectives on and preferences for training of rural and remote health/aged care workers providing dementia care in diverse occupations and settings.
Methods:
The survey comprised multiple choice, Likert scale and open-ended items on respondents’ appraisal of their current dementia training, preferences for training content and delivery, demographic characteristics, work role, workplace setting and geographical site. After piloting, the online survey was promoted to rural and remote organisations and professional networks nationwide. Analysis incorporated descriptive summarisation of respondent characteristics, statistical inference on closed-ended responses across key respondent subgroups (i.e., occupation/role, workplace setting, and remoteness), and thematic content analysis of open-ended responses.
Results
Respondents (N=558) from residential aged care, community/primary care and hospital settings across all Australian states and territories included 61.7% from degree-requiring health professional/management positions, 19.0% certificate-requiring workers (predominantly personal care assistants), and 8.4% enrolled nurses. Overall, ~50% considered current dementia training in their workplace to be inadequate, as did a majority in relation specifically to care of Indigenous clients. Hospital-based workers in particular reported shortcomings of training. Respondents noted time limitations and other work pressures impeding workers’ participation in training, and insufficient opportunities for input into determining priorities for training content and delivery. Respondents overwhelmingly expressed preferences for locally relevant content and face-to-face/onsite training delivery, ideally by dementia experts.
Discussion:
Optimal dementia training in rural and remote Australia requires implementation of locally relevant programs along with remediation of broader health workforce challenges.
Compared with urban Australia, rural and remote areas have a proportionately higher aged population and greater challenges in sustaining a healthcare workforce. As part of a project exploring challenges to and opportunities for dementia care and support training in rural and remote Australia, we aimed to enhance existing knowledge from published literature and stakeholder group discussions by developing and circulating a survey instrument to investigate the perspectives on and preferences for training of rural and remote health/aged care workers providing dementia care in diverse occupations and settings.
Methods:
The survey comprised multiple choice, Likert scale and open-ended items on respondents’ appraisal of their current dementia training, preferences for training content and delivery, demographic characteristics, work role, workplace setting and geographical site. After piloting, the online survey was promoted to rural and remote organisations and professional networks nationwide. Analysis incorporated descriptive summarisation of respondent characteristics, statistical inference on closed-ended responses across key respondent subgroups (i.e., occupation/role, workplace setting, and remoteness), and thematic content analysis of open-ended responses.
Results
Respondents (N=558) from residential aged care, community/primary care and hospital settings across all Australian states and territories included 61.7% from degree-requiring health professional/management positions, 19.0% certificate-requiring workers (predominantly personal care assistants), and 8.4% enrolled nurses. Overall, ~50% considered current dementia training in their workplace to be inadequate, as did a majority in relation specifically to care of Indigenous clients. Hospital-based workers in particular reported shortcomings of training. Respondents noted time limitations and other work pressures impeding workers’ participation in training, and insufficient opportunities for input into determining priorities for training content and delivery. Respondents overwhelmingly expressed preferences for locally relevant content and face-to-face/onsite training delivery, ideally by dementia experts.
Discussion:
Optimal dementia training in rural and remote Australia requires implementation of locally relevant programs along with remediation of broader health workforce challenges.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Publication status | Unpublished - 2024 |
| Event | Australian & New Zealand Association for Health Professional Educators Conference - Adelaide, Australia Duration: 1 Jul 2024 → 4 Jul 2024 https://www.anzahpe.org/event-5361000 |
Conference
| Conference | Australian & New Zealand Association for Health Professional Educators Conference |
|---|---|
| Abbreviated title | 2024 ANZAHPE Conference |
| Country/Territory | Australia |
| City | Adelaide |
| Period | 1/07/24 → 4/07/24 |
| Internet address |