The purpose of this study was to examine the training programs for nursing home workers which had begun to be operated since February, 2008 and analyze their educational effects, and thereupon, test their effects on nursing home workers' commitment to...
The purpose of this study was to examine the training programs for nursing home workers which had begun to be operated since February, 2008 and analyze their educational effects, and thereupon, test their effects on nursing home workers' commitment to the public services and their sense of mission and thereby, suggest the ways to enhance their professionalism.
For this purpose, the researcher sampled those participating in the 1st-class nursing home worker training program operated by the training institutes in Seoul as of September, 2008 for a questionnaire survey. The results of this study can be summarized as follows;
First, it was found that the majority of the sample people had never been educated on elderly people's life or their senile diseases.
Second, the sample people's level of educational effects scored 3.86, which was deemed normal, but such effects differed significantly depending on their career length, time zones of their education, total hours of having been educated and types of training institutes.
Third, their commitment to the public services scored 3.93 on average, while their sense of mission scored 3.43, but such scores differed significantly depending on their monthly income, career length and frequency of having been educated.
Fourth, their overall satisfaction with the training institutes scored 3.83 on average, while their intention to be engaged in nursing home services after their training scored rather higher or 3.97 on average. As a result of analyzing the effects of the training factors on their overall satisfaction with the training institutes, it was found that the more they had been satisfied with the training programs and instructors in terms of techniques and values, they had been more satisfied with the training institutes. On the other hand, as a consequence of analyzing the correlation between intention to be engaged in nursing home services and relevant factors, it was disclosed that their intention to be engaged in nursing home services was correlated with their perceived ability and sense of mission.
Based on the above findings, the problems of our nursing home worker training system can be addressed as follows;
First, the nursing home workers are not subject to any national qualification test, while their qualification are not affected by academic background or career. Second, the training hours are short, while the practices are not sufficient, which means that the current system is far from training the professional nursing home workers. Third, since most of the nursing home workers are assistants, they may not well be professionals. Fourth, the nursing home workers fall short. Namely, since the supplies do not catch up with the demands, it is feared that quality of the nursing home services would be poor if they should be outsourced from abroad.
In order to solve the above problems and enhance nursing home workers' professionalism, the following reform measures have been put forwards. First, it is essential to improve the nursing home workers' training programs. Second, nursing home workers' autonomous organizations should be activated. Third, it is necessary to arrange an ethical guideline for nursing home workers. Lastly, the government is obliged to support the nursing home workers' training. On the other hand, in order to enhance quality of the nursing home workers' training, it is essential to manage and supervise the training programs registered with relevant authorities. In addition, since it has been confirmed that instructors' techniques and value systems can affect nursing home workers' commitment to the public services significantly, it is deemed necessary to secure quality professional instructors. To this end, social workers and nurses should be obliged to be educated on nursing home service instruction for certain period of time and thereby, specialized or professional nursing home service instructors should be brought up to be licensed.