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Indicators which may signal abuse tendencies of institutional caregivers
Abstract
Caregivers are persons who provide daily, direct care to institutionalized clients. During the performance of caregiving tasks, abuse of clients sometimes occurs. This study examined caregiver behaviors and their relationship to client abuse. Twenty-eight caregiver behavioral themes which focused on social-psychological characteristics of caregiving were used to develop a caregiver survey. The survey instrument contained a positive and negative descriptive behavior of each theme which resulted in a 56-item survey instrument. Small groups of supervisory caregivers were given either of two sets of survey materials to distribute and explain to the caregivers they supervised. After a week or more of time had elapsed, the complementary set of survey materials was distributed to each participating group. One set asked participants to recall a caregiver who had committed client abuse and then to rate the caregiver on a 5-point scale using their perceptions of the caregiver's client-care behaviors (abuse-cuing caregiver behavior) before client abuse had occurred. The other set of materials asked the same participants to recall a caregiver who had never committed client abuse and then to rate the caregiver on a 5-point scale using their perceptions of the caregiver's client-care behaviors (good caregiver behaviors). The same 56-item survey was used for both types of ratings but the instructions differed. The survey was administered during a one-month period. Two hundred two survey responses were received, 112 good caregiver behavior responses and 90 abuse-cuing caregiver behavior responses. Analysis of data with an independent t-test found the perceived difference between the two types of caregiver behaviors to be highly significant, t(200) = 15.58, p $<$.001. The data analysis supports the premise that behaviors may signal abuse tendencies of institutional caregivers.
Subject Area
School administration|Social psychology
Recommended Citation
Remmers, Kathleen Dorn, "Indicators which may signal abuse tendencies of institutional caregivers" (1988). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI8824950.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI8824950