Migrant care workers and Maltese older persons in long term care homes : experiences, attitudes and relationships

Abstract

Malta, like many western and industrialised countries, recruited migrants care workers to work in the older persons’ long term care sector, due to shortage of local staff members, to meet the demands. This study aimed to explore the experiences, relationships and attitudes between older persons and migrant care workers, the older persons’ quality of care and quality of life and the migrant care workers’ quality of working experience in the long term care homes. This study adopted a mixed method approach using a concurrent triangulation design, where both quantitative and qualitative data were collected during a single interview. Four long term care homes were selected from 22 Government or Public Private Partnership homes in Malta through cluster sampling. 38 migrant care workers from Asia, Africa, Europe or Eastern Europe, and 40 older persons were then recruited through convenience sampling. Quantitative data was analysed using the, Mann Whitney, Kruskal Wallis and Friedman tests, and the Contingency tables, while the qualitative data, was analysed using thematic analysis. This study found that English (language) is much more (often) spoken than Maltese in the conversation between the migrant care workers and older persons in the long term care homes. Communication barriers existed, between older persons and migrant care workers, which barriers were reduced by translators and body language. Professional relationships were the best, to develop between older persons and migrant care workers followed by friendly familiallike and social relationships. Barriers to developing successful relationships where rejection of migrant care workers by older persons, communication barriers, personal choice of the individuals, and being busy. Discriminatory relationships were also observed between older persons and migrant care workers. Less communication barriers and better relationships were observed in participants having more than six months’ stay/experience in the long term care homes. Older persons having primary education, or knew Maltese language only suffered the most communication barriers and had the worse relationships with the migrant care workers. Older persons expressed satisfaction for the care provided by the migrant care workers, such as, Asians and Africans. The Philippines especially were seen as a caring culture, while Europeans and Eastern Europeans were seen as hard-working, well-behaved and polite. Migrant care workers also expressed satisfaction for their working experience with older persons, especially when they were appreciated, trusted and developed good relationships with older persons.