Study of Dementia Care Staff: Adaptation of Instruments for multinational research (SUSTAIN)
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Project Abstract Maintaining a stable dementia care workforce is an international challenge. People living with dementia have better care outcomes when they receive care from consistent and specially trained dementia care workers. Unfortunately, long-term care facilities (LTCFs), where many people with dementia receive care, continue to experience a staffing crisis. The Study of Dementia Care Staff: Adaptation of Instruments for multinational research (SUSTAIN) study will adapt a U.S. based survey and test international measures for dementia care workers (DCWs) in three different cultural contexts spanning socioeconomic levels from high- to lower-middleincome and geographically spanning three continents. This cross-national (United States, Brazil, Switzerland and Ghana) study will build the capacity of researchers to investigate the dementia care workforce using internationally validated common data elements to measure high priority DCWs concepts, including examining factors that lead to dementia care workers expressing an intent to stay, continuing to care for persons with dementia. In Aim 1, the SUSTAIN study will adapt the U.S. National Dementia Workforce Study (NDWS) surveys for LTCF administrators and staff for multinational administration through a stepwise systematic process for translation and cultural adaptation. The adapted survey will be fielded (Aim 2) with 600 DCWs (200 workers per country) and 60 administrators (20 per country) recruited from LTCFs. In Aim 3, survey data will be used for validation testing and analyzed to describe LTCF staff and administrator responses in Ghana, Brazil and Switzerland, to compare staff and administrator responses between countries and with the U.S., and to identify factors related to LTCF workers’ dementia care knowledge, attitudes, and practices, and intent to stay in their jobs, within and across countries, and to determine how these relationships differ between the three study countries and the U.S. This study will provide critical insight and a dataset to advance measurement of dementia care workforce stability and the conditions that enable these workers to continue to care for persons with dementia in LTCFs. SUSTAIN will strengthen collaborative international research in long-term care. Results will inform workforce interventions, workplace practices, and programs in LTCFs worldwide.
