Abstract

Proportion of the elderly is steadily increasing, and accordingly, number of elderly care facilities for elderly support is also rising up. However, number of nursing caregivers for welfare services is not following the increasing tendency of elderly care facilities. In this study, we surveyed the oral care work fatigue and satisfaction of the nursing caregivers in elderly care facilities, and what the nursing caregivers think to improve quality of welfare services. Also, we analyzed the factors that have relation with self-care ability of the elderly patients in elderly care facilities to help patients care of nursing caregivers. The above can be summarized as results and proposals as follows. 1. Most of the nursing caregivers were engaged in oral healthcare. Satisfaction of oral healthcare work tended to be high, but fatigue of work and need to improve oral healthcare procedure were also high. 2. To make improvement, nursing caregivers argued that regular oral checkup by dental specialists in the facility is needed, followed by regular education of oral health care to nursing caregivers. This was contrary to the opinions of administrators, who rated regular education of oral health management to administrators as the most important one. 3. Nursing caregivers in elderly care facilities were actively performing oral healthcare, but they felt fatigue of work and argued needs to improve working environment. To achieve this, muti-disciplinary approach should be considered, including improvement of oral healthcare speciality, systemic improvement to ease the healthcare burden on nursing caregivers, and to bridge the gap of opinion between nursing caregivers and administrators in elderly care facilities.