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Objective To examine the short-term effects of an inter-professional educational program developed for physicians and other home care specialists to promote home care in the community.Methods From March 2012 to January 2013, an inter-professional educational program (IEP) was held four times in three suburban areas (Kashiwa city and Matsudo city in the Chiba prefecture, and Omori district in the Ota ward). This program aimed to motivate physicians to increase the number of home visits and to encourage home care professionals to work together in the same community areas by promoting inter-professional work (IPW). The participants were physicians, home-visit nurses, and other home care professionals recommended by community-level professional associations. The participants attended a 1.5-day multi-professional IEP. Pre- and post-program questionnaires were used to collect information on home care knowledge and practical skills (26 indexes, 1-4 scale), attitudes toward home care practice (4 indexes, 1-6 scale), and IPW (13 indexes, 1-4 scale). Data from all of the participants without labels about the type of professionals were excluded, and both pre-test and post-test responses were used in the analysis. A Wilcoxon signed-rank test and a paired t-test were conducted to compare pre- and post-program questionnaire responses stratified for physicians and other professionals, and the effect size was calculated.Results The total number of participants for the four programs was 256, and data from 162 (63.3%) were analyzed. The physicians numbered 19 (11.7%), while other professionals numbered 143 (88.3%). Attending this program helped participants obtain home care knowledge of IPW and a practical view of home care. Furthermore, indexes about IPW consisted of two factors: cooperation and interaction; non-physician home care professionals increased their interactions with physicians, other professionals increased their cooperation with other professionals, and physicians increased their cooperation with other physicians.Conclusion Short-term effects to motivate physicians to increase home visits were limited. However, physicians obtained a practical view of home care by attending the IEP. Also, the participation of physicians and other home care professionals in this program triggered the beginning of IPW in suburban areas. This program is feasible when adapted for regional differences.

In order for community-based health promotion and prevention activities to be effective and efficient, it is important to assess the community consciousness among local residents. The purpose of this study was to review the reliability and validity of the Attitude toward Community Scale (ACS) and examine its association with health status among the general population.A cross-sectional survey was conducted in February 2009 using a mail-in self-administered questionnaire. The target population comprised 4,123 randomly-selected local residents aged 20 years and over living in Kashiwa city, Chiba prefecture, Japan. The questionnaire encompassed the ACS (the wording of some items was modified), an also included data to allow assessment of demographics and health status.Of 4,123 questionnaires, 1,735 could be analyzed (valid response rate: 42.1%). Confirmatory factor analysis supported the two-factor model of the original scale. The reliability of the scale was verified using the Cronbach's alpha coefficient. All item-total correlations were moderately or strongly positive. Logistic regression showed that a better attitude toward the community was associated with higher self-rated health, less anxiety about the future and less loneliness.Although the original scale was developed in 1978, the ACS still appears applicable for modern research following some wording modifications of the items. In future studies, it will be necessary to clearly establish relationships between health status and community consciousness and to develop methodology for enhancing the latter.

In Japan, a National Long-Term Care Insurance that provides care for older and infirm people was started in 2000 and the role of care manager (CM) was established to coordinate care plans. As a new profession, CMs have experienced difficulties. This study aimed to clarify CMs' perceived problems regarding case management of difficult cases.A nationwide mail survey was conducted with CMs in 500 public and privately run home care management organizations who were randomly sampled in 10 prefectures. A total of 556 CMs in 268 organizations returned the questionnaire, which asked questions about the demographics of CMs, their training background, employment experience, caseloads, hours worked, whether full-time or part-time, social support, and training given in the previous year. Questions about 12 different types of difficult cases, devised from a previous study by the authors were further developed in this research's preliminary interviews. The difficult cases identified included: clients with dementia, clients living alone, conflict laden families, over-demanding clients and/or family members, individuals with economic difficulties, reluctance to accept formal services, absence of a responsible family member, clients with medical needs, clients and/or family members with mental or psychological disorders, subjects of mistreatment and abuse, and those having disagreement with service providers. Bivariate analysis was conducted on the variables.More than 40% of the CMs felt difficulties in all of the 12 case types. Among those who have taken charge of these cases within the previous year, around 80% of the CMs felt difficulties in nearly all cases. From the bivariate analysis, CMs with a registered nursing background reported less difficulty in dealing with clients with medical needs (P.001) and clients and/or family members with mental or psychological disorders (P.01). Paradoxically, CMs with longer experience in the job felt greater difficulty with a majority of the 12 case types. This result might be explained by the fact they are given charge of more difficult cases.These results suggest that registered nurses have a background suitable for dealing with medical and psychological cases, while those with other backgrounds may need further training and support in these areas. Furthermore, there is a need to provide more intensive training and support to CMs with longer experience in the job who are providing care management to more difficult cases.

Public health nurses (PHNs) played the major role in providing care management for the frail elderly before the Long-term Care Insurance started in 2000. Although the role of care management has now shifted to care managers, PHNs are still consulted by such care managers, service providers and families of the elderly about long-term home care. The purpose of this study was to explore the factors that make a case difficult to deal with from PHNs' viewpoint. This study focuses on the factors related to family living in the same household (living-together family).The informants of this study were seven PHNs who worked for a city with a population of 67,000 (proportion of elderly in the whole population is 19%) in Nagano Prefecture. First, a focus group interview (about 90 minutes) with the six PHNs was conducted to extract an outline of difficult cases. Next, semi-structured interviews (about 60 minutes each) with five PHNs were conducted to obtain detailed information on difficult cases. The interviews were tape-recorded and transcribed verbatim. KJ analysis was conducted by defining characteristics, finding similar factors, and grouping these together to form categories.Categories of family related problems emerged for each of two major categories: family characteristics and care related problems. Firstly, existing family characteristics, including the existence of mental or psychological disorders, low motivation towards providing long-term care, conflictual familial relationships, objections to having service providers in the home, and economic difficulties contribute to problems in providing long-term care with living-together families. These characteristics can lead to a second set of problems, relating to the actual provision of care by the living-together family to frail elderly patients. These care related problems include including insufficient care, rejection of formal care services, and deviation from care directives, including to the point of physical mistreatment.This study points to the need for care providers to consider the living-together family's background and the potential for the phenomena, indicated in this study, to negatively impact on the provision of care for the frail elderly.