Home care is where the heart is: the role of interpersonal relationships in paraprofessional home care.

While the provision of an adequate floor of wages and benefits for paraprofessional workers in the home care component of our long-term care system is desirable, efforts to provide it are curtailed by cost constraints. As a result, other factors which encourage the retention of an adequate home care workforce are all-important. Findings from a study of a representative sample of 487 paraprofessional home care workers in New York City indicate that the ability to develop close interpersonal relationships with home care clients and their families is one of the most attractive and rewarding aspects of the work. It is suggested that agencies focus on their roles in providing an optimum environment for the development of such relationships.