A Scoping Review of Research on Competency Training for Home Care Workers

Overview: Developing competencies of home care workers can potentially contribute to the quality of care and occupational health. This study aims to conduct a scoping review to identify the existing studies on HCW training and how those training programs were designed.Proposal text:

Objectives: Despite the increasing demand for home care, our understanding of existing competency training for home care workers (HCW) is limited. To contribute to the future development of HCW competency training, this study aimed to review the existing studies on HCW training and how those training programs were designed.

Methods: A scoping review was conducted by searching seven databases (Cochrane Library, PsycINFO, CINAHL, EBSCO, MEDLINE, PubMed, and Web of Science) using a set of keywords. 7,941 articles were identified. 20 articles met the inclusion criteria for further data extraction and synthesis.

Results: Previous HCA training has covered four aspects of competencies: general caregiving, specific caregiving, dementia care, and novel home care programs. Designs of trainings varied by the goals, types, learning activities, and caregiving context of these training programs.

Discussion: Our findings signify that the roles or expected competencies of HCWs are increasingly diverse and not limited to personal care and related tasks. Support and supervision could be routinely taken into consideration as part of future trainings, especially for HCWs with limited support. Lastly, this scoping review confirmed the sparse existence of academic work on HCW trainings. Given the demand for home care surge, more collaborations between home care practitioners and researchers and the increased availability and types of competency trainings that target different home care working conditions as well as the health and well-being of these HCWs will be urgently needed.