Behavioral reciprocity in person-centered care: an analysis of residents and nurse aides

Abstract

Resident/aide relationships in long-term care are an important source of resident (Bowers et al., 2001) and aide satisfaction (Mittal et al., 2009). Recent work has focused on aides’ person-centered abilities. Innovatively, the present study highlights the resident’s role in creating and maintaining relationships with aides. This study adapted two operational coding measures previously used to assess aide’s person-centered behaviors: the Person-Centered Caregiving Behavioral Inventory (PCBI) and the Global Behavioral Scale (GBS; Lann-Wolcott et al., 2011). Participants were 20 independent, distinct resident/aide dyads who were videotaped in 48 caregiving episodes. Independent raters used the caregiving videos to assess person-centeredness of residents by coding for nine verbal and three nonverbal relationship- and communication- based behaviors, as well as seven global categories. Good concurrent validity of the behavioral inventory and the global rating scale was found: r (48) = .38, p < .05. A strong relationship was found between residents’ PCBI-R scores and their respective aides’ PCBI scores: r (48) = .65, p < .05. A moderate relationship was found between resident’s GBS-R and their aides’ GBS ratings: r (48) = .35, p < .05. These correlations indicate substantial reciprocity between the aide and resident in engaging in person-centered behaviors, and suggest that residents influence their relationships with aides. Future research should explore how residents can be empowered to use their communication skills to influence their care and satisfaction even more. Attendees of the session will be able to assess residents’ communication skills in contributing to the person-centeredness of their relationships with aides.