'Role overload, low job control, conflict or poor workplace relationships and bullying' are all considered significant hazards.
A new Safe Work Australia report has revealed that workers in the aged care sector are at a high risk of psychosocial injuries.
Curtin University partnered with a health provider for over two years to complete the research, and found that a total redesign of workplace structures, from the ground up, could be the most effective solution.
The report comes a day after a former WA nurse was sentenced for the attempted murder of her husband with severe dementia, which her lawyer said was due to carer's fatigue sustained during the decade-long role as his sole carer.
But while the aged care sector includes people who care for the elderly at home, and at hospitals, the report's empirical research in 2022 and 2023 took place in four residential care facilities of various sizes in WA.
And it found that the industry's psychosocial hazards went far beyond high emotional demands and client behaviour.
A psychosocial injury is one that comes with cognitive, emotional and behavioural symptoms, Safe Work Australia said. It can interfere with a worker's personal life and affect how someone thinks, feels, behaves, and interacts with others.
SafeWork NSW said that role overload, low job control, conflict or poor workplace relationships and bullying are all psychosocial hazards.
And the report found they are all rife in the aged care industry.
High job demands included issues with staffing, high administrative requirements, ineffective and inefficient work processes and procedures, unique and complex needs of residents and families, and poor communication, the report said.
It also found that while later-stage control measures in the sector frequently targeted client behavioural and psychological symptoms that led to job demand, there have been a lack of measures to identify root causes and modify the work environment.
'The key ingredient'
Once the tailored work redesign measures were implemented at the intervention sites, job satisfaction skyrocketed.
From the first assessment, 49 per cent of workers in the intervention sites agreed or strongly agreed that their workload was manageable, and that increased to 91 per cent toward the end of the project.
I think it has reinforced that need to look at the broader picture, rather than just trying to fix everything with training, one aged care employee said during an interview included in the report.
But the report said the solutions would need to be tailored for each site, and cited the American Journal of Public Health when noting the importance of involving the workers in the workplace redesign process.
The key ingredient for this is the effective nurturing of active participation processes that can involve employees and stakeholders at different levels in collectively generating constructive, incremental, and effective organisational change.
https://7news.com.au/news/safe-work-australia-finds-psychosocial-hazards-common-for-workers-in-the-aged-care-sector-c-15447998
