Home Support Services

Home Support is in-home care provided by home support workers (also known as Community Health Workers or Home Care Aids) following nursing guidelines. More than 90% of home care is provided by home support workers. Service continuity has been identified as a top concern in home support.

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Project Goals

How Do External Relationship Quality and Internal Governance Mechanisms Influence Service Continuity in Home Support? This is a research project being conducted by Dr. Jie Zhang and Dr. Linda Shi who are professors at the University of Victoria Gustavson School of Business. This research is funded by the University of Victoria Internal Research / Creative Project Grant. The University of Victoria Institute on Aging and Lifelong Health provided research support. The purpose of this research is to assemble the empirical evidence required to understand the managerial mechanisms and interpersonal relationship as contributors to service continuity in providing home support services in private homes as well as care homes.

Review Consent Form

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Invitation & Consent Form

We invite you to participate in this research because your experience as a community health worker (also known as home support worker or health care aid) can shine light on the drivers and outcomes of service continuity in home support. If you consent to voluntarily participate in this research, you will be asked to participate in a survey that will be recorded and used for analysis. All identifying information will be removed from the data to ensure participant anonymity at all times. Confidentiality will be ensured throughout the research project. The survey requires approximately 15 minutes. You will be asked to provide answers to the questions. You are free to withdraw from the study at any time with no explanation. An honorarium (CAD 15) is offered to each completed survey as a token of appreciation.

Benefits

While there are no direct benefits of this research to individual participants, findings may inform home support operations and health system strategies to strengthen initiatives and efforts to improve the home support services. These benefits to society and to health systems in general may indirectly benefit individual participants.

Inconvenience & Risks

Participation in this study may cause some inconvenience to you, specifically the time required for answering the questions. It is reasonable to anticipate that some may feel some emotional discomfort when asked to reflect on experience especially at this time/during the pandemic. The risk may be minimized by focusing on the intent of the research which is to understand your professional interactions with your clients. Please also be reminded that you voluntarily participate in this research and may choose not to answer any questions at any time to mitigate such risk. In addition, please know that there are support resources such as the HeretoHelp (a group of seven leading mental health and substance non-profit agencies in BC) and BCCDC information on mental well-being during pandemic (http://www.bccdc.ca/health-info/diseases-conditions/covid-19/about-covid-19/mental-well-being-during-covid-19). There are no other known risks associated with this study and your anonymity will be secured.

Voluntary Participation

Your participation in this research must be completely voluntary. If you do decide to participate, you may withdraw at any time without any consequences or any explanation. If you do withdraw from the study during data collection your data will NOT be used unless you give your consent. If you choose to withdraw from the study please notify the researchers: Dr. Jie Zhang (jiezhang@uvic.ca) and Dr. Linda Shi (lshi@uvic.ca).

On-going Consent

To make sure that you continue to consent to participate in this research, please note that the data will be retained for 7 years. During that time the researchers may use the data to inform subsequent studies, publications and presentations.

Anonymity & Confidentiality

To make sure that you continue to consent to participate in this research, please note that the data will be retained for 7 years. During that time the researchers may use the data to inform subsequent studies, publications and presentations. After 7 years, all files will be permanently deleted. This data may be subjected to secondary analyses for projects that examine similar processes and outcomes. It is anticipated that the results of this study will be shared with others in the following ways:

  • Journal publications
  • Presentations
  • Newspaper & Trade Publications
  • Book Chapters

In terms of protecting your anonymity and confidentiality:

  • All data provided to and/or collected by the research team will be stored and protected on the password protected and encrypted (University of Victoria) computers and servers, and will only accessed by the research team. Immediately following the completion of survey data collection, all identifiable participant information will be removed from the data. As well, all surveys will be coded with a numerical number to track data, identifiable only by the research team for the purposes of understanding context and statements.
  • Files will be named so as to signify the date of the survey and participant pseudonym. Only those conducting the survey or completing the data analysis will have access to the data.
  • The key participants will only be known by the researchers, and identity of participants will remain confidential at all times.
  • Finally, in presenting project results either in meetings, conferences or publications, no information will be shared that could lead to the identification of the participants.
  • There is low risk of violating participants’ confidentiality related to this study. An informed third party could possibly connect participants with information and quotes in the case study. All participants will be informed of potential risks to participating in this study. This risk will be told to all participants. The research team will ensure that the participant’s information and comments remain completely confidential at all times.

Contacts

In addition to contacting the researchers (jiezhanguvic.ca), you may verify the ethical approval of this study, or raise any concerns you might have, by contacting the Human Research Ethics Office at the University of Victoria.

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