- Title
- Sustainable residential aged care: the influence of environment on carer work satisfaction and stress
- Creator
- Hilaire, T.; Brewer, G.; Gajendran, T.
- Relation
- 38th AUBEA Conference (AUBEA2013). Proceedings of the 38th AUBEA Conference (Auckland, New Zealand 20-22 November, 2013)
- Relation
- http://www.aubea2013.org.nz/
- Publisher
- University of Auckland
- Resource Type
- conference paper
- Date
- 2013
- Description
- Throughout the developed world populations are ageing which is placing pressure on residential aged care facilities (RAC) and families. People caring for the elderly in RAC face workplace stress and workplace satisfaction that is unique to their area of work on a daily basis. Both workplace stress and satisfaction have been shown to influence quality of care which has been strongly associated with quality of life (QoL) for residents and carers in RAC. Evidence is increasing that the physical environment can influence work outcomes through the introduction of potential stressors or stimuli. Therefore if workplace stress/satisfaction can be affected by the physical environment and workplace stress/satisfaction can influence the level of care, which is a major factor of QoL, then RAC facilities could benefit from considering the insulation of workers from environmental stressors complemented by the promotion of spaces that stimulate satisfaction. Consideration of these aspects of the built environment has implications for environmental and social sustainability as the population of Australia and much of the developed world are ageing which will escalate demand for RAC with increasing levels of dementia specific care. This paper reports on the initial findings of three aspects from Stage 1 of a study that investigated a range of thirteen design variables in RAC with the potential to impact upon carer job satisfaction and stress. Initial responses to the research have confirmed the influence of some of the design variables, cast doubt over the influence of others and provided some new variables. As the research is expanded to include more participants the dependencies and relationships between the candidates and the relevance of the discovered candidates will be further investigated.
- Subject
- residential aged care; satisfaction; stress; built environment; design
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1048749
- Identifier
- uon:14948
- Language
- eng
- Full Text
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