A Study on Person-Centered Care in Long-Term Care Facilities Associated With Evaluation

This qualitative study aimed to explore factors hindering person-centered care in long-term care (LTC) facilities by focusing on content analysis of evaluation of national long-term care. To this end, purposive sampling and in-depth interviews were conducted with 16 directors or middle managers of eight facilities in Busan, Ulsan, and Gyeongnam provinces that received excellent ratings (A and B) in the 2021 long-term care facility evaluation. Analysis results are as follows. First, as a result of word frequency analysis, a number of evaluation indicators that hindered person-centered care were discovered in six broad areas of person-centered care (respect for autonomy, close relationships, home-like environment, employee empowerment, functional maintenance support, and comfortable care). Among them, respect for autonomy hindered person-centered care in 9 evaluation items. The most frequent evaluation items were personnel standards (7 times) and facility standards (8 times). Second, results of the analysis of core values of person-centered care and the extent to which contents of each indicator were in line with the categories of person-centered care showed that indicators of staffing standards and facility standards were the most significant obstacles to person-centered care in various areas, with improvement of indicators being the most urgent. Indicators of human resource development also needed to be supplemented to strengthen the expertise of staff. In addition, it is necessary to improve the guarantee of the recipient's right to choose by providing work-oriented care that prioritizes safety. Results of this study suggest that revision of the Welfare of the Aged Act is necessary as the most urgent point to become person-centered care in Long-term Care facilities in Korea.