Institute of Medical Sociology, Health Services Research, and Rehabilitation Science, Faculty of Human Sciences & Faculty of Medicine, University of Cologne, 50933 Koln, Germany.
Faculty of Human Sciences, Research Methods Division, University of Cologne, 50931 Koln, Germany.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 Apr 21;19(9):5045. doi: 10.3390/ijerph19095045.
The COVID-19 pandemic has strained long-term care organization staff and placed new demands on them. This study examines the role of the general ability and power of a long-term care organization to act and react collectively as a social system, which is called systemic agency capacity, in safeguarding the provision of person-centered care during a crisis. The question of how the systemic agency capacity of long-term care organizations helps to ensure person-centered care during the pandemic is an open research question. We conducted a pooled cross-sectional study on long-term care organizations in Germany during the first and second waves of the pandemic (April 2020 and December 2020-January 2021). The sample consisted of 503 (first wave) and 294 leaders (second wave) of long-term care organizations. The top managers of these facilities were asked to report their perceptions of their facility's agency capacity, measured by the AGIL scale, and the extent to which the facility provides person-centered care. We found a significant positive association between the leaders' perceptions of systemic agency capacity and their perceptions of delivered person-centered care, which did not change over time. The results tentatively support the idea that fostering the systemic agency capacity of long-term care organizations facilitates their ability to provide quality routine care despite environmental shocks such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
COVID-19 大流行给长期护理组织的工作人员带来了压力，并对他们提出了新的要求。本研究考察了长期护理组织作为一个社会系统共同行动和反应的一般能力和权力的作用，这被称为系统代理能力，以保障在危机期间提供以患者为中心的护理。长期护理组织的系统代理能力如何有助于确保大流行期间的以患者为中心的护理，这是一个悬而未决的研究问题。我们在 COVID-19 大流行的第一波和第二波期间（2020 年 4 月和 2020 年 12 月至 2021 年 1 月）对德国的长期护理组织进行了一项汇集的横断面研究。样本包括 503 名（第一波）和 294 名（第二波）长期护理组织的领导者。这些设施的高层管理人员被要求报告他们对设施代理能力的看法，该能力通过 AGIL 量表进行衡量，以及设施提供以患者为中心的护理的程度。我们发现，领导者对系统代理能力的看法与其对提供的以患者为中心的护理的看法之间存在显著的正相关关系，而且这种相关性随着时间的推移并没有变化。结果初步支持了这样一种观点，即培养长期护理组织的系统代理能力有助于其在面临 COVID-19 等环境冲击时提供优质常规护理的能力。
