Predictors of home health workers’ job attitudes : application of the job demands and resources (JD-R) model

With the trend of population aging and more people choosing to age in place, the demand for the home health service is rapidly increasing. By providing personal assistance with daily activities and household tasks, as well as emotional support, home health workers play critical roles in helping older adults stay in their own home and community. However, with the demanding work condition, the annual turnover rate among this workforce has been reported to be 50~75% causing a long-term care workforce crisis. This study aims to examine the predictors of home health workers’ job satisfaction and turnover intention. The conceptual model is based on the Job-Demands and Resources (JDR) model. It was hypothesized that job demands (e.g., job stress, work-family conflict, and experience with physical injury) would negatively predict job attitudes. Conversely, job resources (e.g., intrinsic rewards, satisfaction with clients, satisfaction with peers, satisfaction with supervisor, and organizational support) were hypothesized to have positive influence on job attitudes. Furthermore, job resources were hypothesized to have buffering effect in the relationship between job demands and job attitudes. Data was collected from a home health service agency in Austin, Texas. Self-administered surveys were completed by 150 home care workers. Descriptive and bivariate analyses were conducted to examine the characteristics of the sample and explore associations among study variables. Separate multivariate regression models were estimated for job satisfaction and turnover intention. The main finding of this study is that perceived organizational support was the strongest predictor of job satisfaction of home health workers followed by intrinsic rewards. Physical injury at work was the strongest predictor of turnover intention of home health workers followed by satisfaction with clients and perceived organizational support. No interaction between job demands and resources was found to be significant. Findings of this study suggest that to promote job satisfaction and retention of workers, workplace injury prevention effort should be carefully incorporated in job trainings of this workforce. Also, various strategies should be developed to provide organizational support that foster workers’ perception of being valued by organization.