This research aims to examine the motivation to get a job, job stress, and job satisfaction of visiting geriatric care helpers working in long-term home care facilities, and to grasp the difference in the motivation to get a job, job stress, and job s...
This research aims to examine the motivation to get a job, job stress, and job satisfaction of visiting geriatric care helpers working in long-term home care facilities, and to grasp the difference in the motivation to get a job, job stress, and job satisfaction according to their personal characteristics and job characteristics, and to analyze the difference in job stress and job satisfaction according to the motivation to get a job. To do this, questionnaire survey was conducted on 267 geriatric care helpers working in 9 visiting care centers located in Chungnam Dangjin-si about geriatric care helpers’activities, motivation to get a job, job stress, and job satisfaction. The results of this research are as follows. First, as the visiting geriatric care helpers’ motivation to get a job, ‘to contribute to society’ was most cited, followed by ‘to earn a living,’ ‘to earn extra money,’ ‘achievement and self-realization,’ and ‘leisure use.’ The older the respondents were, the higher their living standards were, and the more they were dependent on their spouse’s income or other incomes, the more respondents cited ‘social contribution’ as the motivation to get a job. Second, the results of examining job stress showed that job stress was relatively not high, and in the factors for job stress, the stress related to job was the highest. In the demographic characteristics, the unhealthier the respondents were, the higher their job stress was.
In the job characteristics, the more monthly average recipients there were and the higher their salaries were, the higher their overall job stress was. In the motivation to get a job, the overall job stress was found to be higher when they got a job to make a living. Third, the results of examining job satisfaction of the visiting geriatric care helpers showed that the degree of job satisfaction was slightly higher than that of the intermediate level, and in the factors for job satisfaction, the degree of job satisfaction with job continuity was highest. In the personal characteristics, the degree of job satisfaction was highest when the respondents were middle school graduates and healthy, and in the job characteristics, the higher their salaries, the higher their degree of job satisfaction was. However, in the motivation to get a job, there were no significant differences in the degree of job satisfaction.
Based on the above-mentioned results of this research, the suggestions to reduce job stress of geriatric care helpers and raise their degree of job satisfaction were as follows. First, in order to encourage the health management of geriatric care helpers and to raise the quality of geriatric care service, the operators of home care facilities should encourage regular health examination and operate their own health promotion programs so that mental and physical exhaustion of geriatric care helpers may not be accumulated. Second, the job stress of geriatric care helpers was found to be higher when their motivation toget a job was for economic reason than when it was for leisure use or for achievement/ self-realization. It is because when they choose the geriatric care helper job for economic reasons, it exerts negative effects on their self-esteem and hinders the occupational sense of achievement. Accordingly, diverse education and psychological counseling programs that can inspire pride in the job of geriatric care helpersshould be conducted so that the self-esteem as geriatric care helpers can be enhanced. Third, it has been five years now since the long-term care insurance system for the elderly was enforced, but the operating guidelines for long-term care facilities and personnel expense guidelines for geriatric care helpers have not yet been established, so it causes much confusion in the salary structure of geriatric care helpers. Accordingly, from now on, clear operating guidelines for long-term care facilities for the elderly and the personnel expense guidelines for geriatric care helpers should be established so that appropriate treatment for the geriatric care helpers, who are the cream of the crop of the long-term care insurance system for the elderly, can be provided, and the long-term care insurance system for the elderly can be successfully established through the reduction of job stress and enhancement of job satisfaction of the geriatric care helpers.