Improving New Normal Care Skills for Family Volunteers Caring for Dependent Elderly Patients

Abstract

This research and developmental research design study aimed to develop and assess a new program to provide training about “new normal” care skills for family volunteers caring for dependent, elderly family members and an associated social support program. The participants were 60 family volunteers located in the Nam Seum sub-district in the Meung district of Uthaithani Province, Thailand. They were selected by purposive sampling and divided into an experimental and control group consisting of 30 participants each. The experimental group received training in the new normal care skills enhancement program for the care of dependent elderly family members along with with social reinforcement, while the control group received training based on the traditional family volunteer training program from the Ministry of Public Health. The research instruments included a knowledge assessment, a competency assessment, and the new normal care skills assessment developed by the researchers. The content validity was assessed by experts and the instruments’ reliabilities were 0.78, 0.82 and 0.87, respectively. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and t-tests. The research found that, after completing the training, the mean scores for knowledge, competency, and new normal caring skills among the experimental group were higher than before receiving the program and that the experimental group had statistically significant higher scores than the control group that received the traditional elderly care training at the .01 significance level. The findings suggested that health personnel should add the new normal care skills training program simultaneously with providing social reinforcement to the training program for caring for dependent elderly family members in order to be able to adapt training for family caregivers to meet the standards of the “new normal care practices”.