Direct care workers participating in a new study believe their organizations prepared them to care for residents and clients during the pandemic.
A new research brief from the LeadingAge LTSS Center @UMass Boston documents the impact of COVID-19 on direct care workers.
COVID-19: Experiences of Direct Care Workers in Aging Services outlines:
- The specific challenges and levels of stress frontline workers are experiencing during the coronavirus health crisis.
- How prepared workers feel to care for residents and clients.
- How workers rate the quality of employer communication around COVID-19.
During the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, the LTSS Center partnered with WeCareConnectTM to study the impact of COVID-19 on LTSS employees working for LeadingAge provider members.
WeCareConnectTM, an employee engagement and management system created by Wellspring Lutheran Services, helps 165 organizations in more than 1,200 locations solicit regular feedback from their employees and facilitate continuous quality improvement. During May 2020, WeCareConnectTM added several pandemic-related questions to its employee interview battery. Those questions, created by LTSS Center researchers, were designed to explore the experience of workers during the COVID-19 health crisis.
An analysis of the responses to the new questions showed that a substantial percentage of direct care workers experienced a host of challenges during the pandemic.
Researchers compared findings across care settings, including nursing homes, assisted living communities, and home and community-based services (HCBS) settings. They found, for example, that direct care workers at nursing homes and assisted living communities faced increased workload demands and experienced understaffing more often than workers in HCBS settings.
Notably, direct care workers participating in the study said they believe their organizations prepared them for the pandemic. Workers also gave their organizations high marks for how they communicated with employees.
Read the research brief to see detailed data on direct care worker responses to the WeCareConnectTM interview battery, and to review guidance on how providers can help mitigate worker stress.