This study analyzed empirically the influencing factors for the quality of social welfare services of elderly care facilities.
In this study, the quality of social welfare services was limited to dementia treatment programs of elderly care facilities...
This study analyzed empirically the influencing factors for the quality of social welfare services of elderly care facilities.
In this study, the quality of social welfare services was limited to dementia treatment programs of elderly care facilities and the quality of social welfare services was examined by revising and complementing Donabedian(1982)'s systematic model and Kettner's systematic theory.
This study was conducted on 210 workers in charge of social welfare services in nationwide free elderly care facilities(210 places) by post questionnaire method. When it comes to data collection, the quality focused on suppliers was researched by self-filling questionnaire survey. Before this research, the questionnaire for the research was decided by conducting pre-test on social welfare workers in charge of social welfare programs in elderly care facilities for the contents and construction of the questionnaire.
This research was conducted from Sept.14th to Oct.31st of 2004 and was conducted twice to improve collection rate. Among questionnaires sent twice, 100 copies were collected and 89 copies were used for statistical analysis except 11 copies of non-answer or insincere answers.
The quality of social welfare services was divided into environmental conditions, input, conversion(structure, execution), output and results. And the quality and influencing factors for it recognized by program operators according to organizational environment, employee training and service quality recognition and attitude were examined through reliability measurement, T-test, ANOVA and multi-regression analysis.
The result from the analysis proved that the most influencing factor was employee training. But, it had negative correlation. That is, the result showed that the less employee training, the higher service quality, and the lower service quality recognition and attitude, the higher service quality. It shows that present social welfare workers are not taking any training for service quality. However, the quality of services on the spots appeared as 2.44 out of 4. Though it was not a high score, service quality showed higher level of score than the level of spot training. It means that there is a high qualitative recognition on social welfare workers' doings in spite of non-training. Also, it shows that the quality of services for clients' desire searching, service circumstances, plan, intervention, examination and assessment which are substantially required for service presentation compared to all sorts of preparations such as resources, administrational support, manpower, material resources and assessment is low in that the field of structure and execution required in the process of service presentation showed low scores as 2.31 and 2.30 respectively when the quality of services was analyzed by dividing it into environmental conditions, input, structure, execution, output and results.
The quality of presented procedural services shows low level though the level of employee training is low and service quality is high. So to speak, there is a recognition on output and result which are regarded as important in the assessment system of non-employee training fields such as environmental conditions, human and material resources and facilities, but procedural service quality for clients showed low level. When it comes to procedural service quality, required knowledge and information should be presented for the employee training, program development, but it is not being conducted actually.
Though qualitative services seem to have been established in the external appearance by emphasizing structural conditions and results due to the facility assessment system of the present elderly care facilities in Korea, initial interview, assessment, service plan, intervention and examination which are practically presented to clients are not educated and their levels are also low.
The program should be focused not on structural aspect of facilities anymore but on internal qualitative aspect of services for real client services. Special practical education which is not for assessment-focused services but for service presentation suitable to clients in development and execution is needed, and social welfare workers should improve their self-development mind and their own recognition on the quality of social welfare services.