Service Program and Job Description of Workers in Long-term Care Facilities for Older Adults

노인요양기관별 서비스 유형과 종사자의 업무분석

Purpose: Long-term care facilities have a responsibility to provide care service that enables residents to maintain their maximal functional capacity and quality of life. Also their needs must be reflected to the service programs. In oder to provide an adequate service, we should assess the elderly's physical, psychological and social health status and the need. In addition to this, the long-term care facilities must be defined clearly by the type of services. This study would contribute to conduct appropriate services in public long-term care policy for the older population in the future. This study would provide informations of long-term care facilities' services and older persons' needs for long-term care. Method: To achieve this objectives, this paper investigates the types, service programs of long-term care institutes and job descriptions of workers. The subjects were consisted of 150 long-term care institutes. 150 institutes of long-term care facilities were drawn from all over the country by a nonrandom, convenience sampling. The data were analyzed by frequency, percentage, $x^2$-test using SPSS program. The instruments of this study were self-reported questionnaires for long-term care institutes. The data were collected from March 1, 2004 to may 31, 2004. Results: Service programs of long-term care institutes were not enough for residents' demands. The job descriptions among nurse, social worker and physical therapist were not clearly defined. The nurse's main role was medication and checking vital sign(49.7%), that of social worker's was observation and supervising (31.2%). The most significant problems were lacking of diverse service programs for residents. Conclusion: Considering these findings and conclusion, the needs of long-term care services should be provided by individual physical and psychological level. And the professional manpower for elderly should be educated in multi disciplines.