ABSTRACT
A questionnaire survey regarding the physical and mental load of providing bathing assistance was conducted with a group of paid caregivers. The questionnaire was administered before and after bath time for 11 days with staff (n=34) working at a private nursing home. The following data regarding bathing assistance were collected daily: number of people receiving bathing assistance, average age of bath recipients, and the average nursing care level of people receiving bathing assistance. In addition, participants answered questions about their physical and mental wellbeing. Participants responded to this part of the questionnaire by using a Likert scale consisting of 5 choices ranging between never applicable and very often applicable. Through the survey period, a total number of 126 data points were obtained. The results indicated that after bathing an elder, irritation, dullness, and sleepiness significantly increased, whereas vigor significantly decreased . After conducting an analysis of covariance structures, a path diagram was obtained
(GFI=.893, AGFI=.821, RMSEA=.099). Sense of fulfillment was not significantly related to bathing load (.01), but sense of burden was related to bathing load (.20).In addition, the relationship between average nursing care level of the patients and the bathing load was significant (-.42), such that bathing care load was high when conducting assistance for people with low nursing care levels.
