The effect of an experiential learning based swallowing management program on promoting knowledge, skills and attitude in nursing home carers

Abstract

Dysphagia is a major health care issue in elderly nursing home residents. Appropriate management on dysphagia is important to ensure safe and pleasant mealtime experience and prevent possible health and psychosocial impact on the elderly residents. The staff’s knowledge on dysphagia, management skills and negative attitude are found to be a major contributing factor that hinder the quality of dysphagia management. The present study investigated the effectiveness of the experiential learning based swallowing management training program in improving the knowledge, skills and attitude of the staff in nursing homes. A total of 15 nursing home staff were recruited from 2 local nursing homes. The participants completed the Questionnaire of Dysphagia Management and mealtime observation checklist to assess their (1) knowledge on dysphagia, (2) management skills and (2) attitude towards the residents. Results showed that the training program was not effective in improving the knowledge, skills and attitude of the staff, but revealed that the participants has inadequate knowledge on dysphagia management, showed inappropriate dysphagia management skills and negative attitude towards the residents. Possible revisions of the current training program and the outcome measurement tools were discussed to develop an effective training protocol.