The effectiveness of empowering in-service training programs for foreign nurse aides in community-based long-term care facilities

The objective of the study was to examine the effectiveness of empowering in-service training programs for foreign nurse aides working in community-based long-term care (LTC) facilities. The design was a pretest and post-test design with experiment and control groups. The sample consisted of purposeful sampling from 10 LTC facilities in the Shihlin and Peitou areas of Taipei. A total of 35 foreign nurse aides participated in this study; 16 in the experimental group and 19 in the control group. The experimental group attended the training program for a 3-month period, whereas the control group did not receive any training. The research findings reveal that the training program was effective in increasing the work stress of workload/scheduling (Z = 2.01, p ≤ 0.05), meaning that the training program has raised the awareness of work stress for foreign nurse aides. The results could be used as a reference when considering the development of in-service training programs in LTC facilities.