Caring and Working during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Perspective of Portuguese Residential Care Facility Workers

Maria Miguel Barbosa, Laetitia Teixeira, Constança Paúl, Javier Yanguas and Rosa Marina Afonso
Additional contact information
Maria Miguel Barbosa: Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas Abel Salazar, School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, University of Porto, Rua Jorge de Viterbo Ferreira, 228, 4050-313 Porto, Portugal
Laetitia Teixeira: Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas Abel Salazar, School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, University of Porto, Rua Jorge de Viterbo Ferreira, 228, 4050-313 Porto, Portugal
Constança Paúl: Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas Abel Salazar, School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, University of Porto, Rua Jorge de Viterbo Ferreira, 228, 4050-313 Porto, Portugal
Javier Yanguas: Aubixa Fundazioa, 20009 Donostia-San Sebastian, Spain
Rosa Marina Afonso: Center for Health Technology and Services Research (CINTESIS), Rua Dr. Plácido da Costa, s/n, 4200-450 Porto, Portugal

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 10, 1-12

Abstract: Residential care facilities (RCF) for older people are facing high demands due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim of this study was to explore the workers’ perspectives on the changes in work and care dynamics amidst the first wave of the pandemic at Portuguese RCF. This is a descriptive, quantitative, and cross-sectional study. An online questionnaire about pandemic-induced changes in work and care dynamics was sent to 2325 RCF. These entities were then asked to share it with their workers. The participants ( n = 784) were mostly women (92.7%) and mostly composed of technical directors (41.6%) and direct-care workers (17.1%). The respondents reported that during the first wave of the pandemic, when compared to the pre-pandemic period, there were greater difficulties in providing care related to the basic necessities of older people (52.7%); direct-care workers were required to work more consecutive hours in each shift (69.95%); direct-care workers had to live at RCF (14.8%), and there were changes concerning the possibility of promoting person-centered care (PCC) practices. It also revealed that focusing on disease prevention and sanitary measures alone facilitates practices that reinforce the traditional model of procedure-centered care and have negative consequences on the rights and well-being of those living and working at RCF, exposing and accentuating preexisting vulnerabilities. This study considers the pandemic’s serious implications and alarming questions about basic care, dignity, living, and working conditions at Portuguese RCF. These notions reinforce the need for change through redefining care policies and practices in Portuguese RCF beyond the pandemic. The current situation provides an opportunity to adopt a formal PCC model.

Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic; older adults; person-centered care; residential care facilities; long-term care; Portugal; healthy aging; quality of care (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/10/5963/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/10/5963/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:10:p:5963-:d:815421

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().