Home Care
Research Areas:
Although most people think of hospitals when considering the workplace of health care workers, an increasing amount of health care is delivered in patient homes. This will increase dramatically over the next 20 years as the population “bubble” chooses to age-in-place. When the workplace is a private home, risk factors are present that are not common in hospital settings. These include traveling in unsafe neighborhoods, working alone (sometimes at night) in uniquely uncontrolled work environments.
The normal protections that workers have in hospital settings (e.g. co-workers, security guards, alarm systems, standardized procedures and equipment) are not present in home care. In the absence of employer safety policies and programs, home care workers must rely on their own resources to deal with a variety of personal risks. These can include exposure to musculoskeletal injuries, biological pathogens, abuse and violence, and emotional demands from patients and families that are not shared with other workers. Exposure to work-related risks on the job can result in a continuum of outcomes, the most severe of which is homicide, but also disabling injuries, non-fatal injuries with and without lost work time, post-traumatic stress disorder (Matthews, 1998), anxiety, fear of future violence, reduced job satisfaction, and changing jobs.
Grants:
Maryland Homecare Workforce Initiative – A Peer- Training Demonstration Project Maryland Department of Aging, 2003-2004 The major objective of this grant was to conduct a needs assessment of Maryland home care workers and then plan and execute a training workshop for these workers using information from the needs assessment. PI: Kate McPhaul and Jane Lipscomb.
Workplace Violence Risk in the Home Health Work Place CDC/NIOSH 2002-2004. The main objective of this grant was to develop measures for assessing the risk of violence in the home health care workplace. (PI) Jane Lipscomb and Kate McPhaul. Co-investigators: Jeanne Geiger Brown, Jeffrey V. Johnson, Karen Soeken.(R21 OH0007754)
Work Organization and Health among Home Health Care Workers CDC/NIOSH, 2001-2004. The major objectives of this project are to examine the association between job demands and control at work and symptoms of major depressive disorder and the prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders among home care. (PI) Carles Muntaner, Co-investigator: Jeanne Geiger Brown. (R01OH007440)
Workplace Violence in Home and Community Health Educational Resource Center Small Grant Award, 2001-2003 NIOSH/Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. The objective of this grant was to qualitatively measure the risk of violence to intensive case managers providing community based care to the mentally ill. . (PI): Kate McPhaul, Co-investigators: Jane Lipscomb, Jeffrey V. Johnson, Karen Kauffman.
Publications:
McPhaul, K., Rosen, J., Bobb, S., Okechukwu, C., Geiger-Brown, J., Kauffman, K., Johnson, J., Lipscomb, J. An exploratory study of mandated safety measures for home visiting case managers. Canadian Journal of Nursing Research, In press.
Geiger-Brown, J., Muntaner, C., McPhaul, K., Lipscomb, J., Trinkoff, A.M. Abuse and Violence During Home Care Work as Predictor of Worker Depression. Home Health Care Services Quarterly, 2006.
McPhaul K. Home care security: nurses can take simple precautions to ensure safety during home visits. American Journal of Nursing, 104(9): 96, 2004.
Arteaga S, Geiger-Brown J, Muntaner C, Trinkoff A, Lipscomb J, Delp L. Home care work organization and health: do Hispanic women have different concerns? Hispanic Health Care Intl, 1: 135-41, 2002.
Lipscomb J, Muntaner C. Protecting and expanding OSHA jurisdiction over home workplaces. The Nation’s Health, September: 34-5, 2000.