UNREGULATED CARE PROVIDERS (CARE AIDES) IN NURSING HOMES—A RESOURCE FOR QUALITY OF CARE

Translating Research in Elder Care (TREC) is a longitudinal program (2007–2022) of applied research, involving >40 investigators and decision makers from across Canada. TREC’s aims are to find practical solutions that contribute to sustainable improvements in quality of care and life of frail older nursing home residents, and quality of worklife of their payed care providers. Unregulated care providers with little formal training (are aides) provide up to 80% of direct care in nursing homes, and are therefore a critical resource for quality of care. However, little research has focused on this provider group, and our understanding of their situation and how to best use this largely untapped resource to make improvements is limited. Therefore, care aides are an important research focus in TREC. In this symposium we will first give an overview of the TREC research program. We will specifically present findings on care aides’ quality of worklife and best practice use, and the association of care aides’ work environment (i.e., care unit work context) with these outcomes. We will then present specific findings on care aides’ physical and mental health. The third presentation will focus on pain in nursing home residents. Furthermore, we will present two ongoing cluster randomized intervention studies, in which care aides and their leaders are systematically targeted in order to improve quality of care, life and worklife on nursing home care units.