ArticleBMC health services research2021
"It changed everything": The safe Home care qualitative study of the COVID-19 pandemic's impact on home care aides, clients, and managers.
Article in BMC health services research, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 26 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
26 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 55 citations in OpenAlex.
- Unfinished nursing care in healthcare settings during the COVID-19 pandemic: a systematic review.BMC health services research · 2024Pooled it
- Service continuity of community-based health and social care organisations in times of disaster and health emergencies: a mapping review.BMC health services research · 2026Article
- The Association Between Home-Visit Nursing Use and the Incidence of Potentially Avoidable Hospitalisation and Its Duration Among Community-Dwelling Older People: A 12-Month Prospective Cohort Study.International journal of older people nursing · 2026Article
- The emotional cost of containment: a cross-sectional analysis of treatment effects among informal carers in South Asia during the COVID-19 pandemic.Global health action · 2025Article
- Coping Together: A Qualitative Study Exploring the Work of Home Health Care Assistants in Ireland.Geriatrics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Experiences of risk communication among managers of home-visit nursing agencies during the COVID-19 pandemic: a qualitative descriptive study.BMC nursing · 2025Article
- "I Don't Know What I'm Going to Meet Today": Home Care Workers' Decision-Making About Safety During the COVID-19 Pandemic.Journal of applied gerontology : the official journal of the Southern Gerontological Society · 2025Article
- In-home work environment for home care workers in Northern Sweden before and during the Covid-19 pandemic.BMC health services research · 2025Article
- Health and care workers' perceptions of PPE and physical distancing for COVID-19: A qualitative evidence synthesis.Journal of public health in Africa · 2025Review
- The Safe Home Care Intervention Study: Implementation Methods and Effectiveness Evaluation.Journal of applied gerontology : the official journal of the Southern Gerontological Society · 2024Article
- Elevating Home Health Aide Input in Co-Creation of COVID-19 Vaccine Messaging.The American journal of hospice & palliative care · 2024Article
- Coaching Home Care Clients to Prepare Their Homes for Safe Care Visits: A Mixed-Methods Study to Evaluate a Nurse-Led Educational Intervention Process.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2024Article
- The valuation of older adult homecare services under a joint medical-social budgetary perspective.Frontiers in public health · 2024Article
- How did providers of home care for older adults manage the early phase of the Covid-19 pandemic? A qualitative case study of managers' experiences in Region Stockholm.BMC health services research · 2023Article
- Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on domiciliary care workers in Wales, UK: a data linkage cohort study using the SAIL Databank.BMJ open · 2023Article
- Aide and Client Safety "Should Go Hand-In-Hand": Qualitative Findings From Home Care Aides, Clients, and Agency Leaders.Journal of applied gerontology : the official journal of the Southern Gerontological Society · 2023Article
- A Qualitative Study of Home Health Aides' Perspectives towards COVID-19 Vaccination.Journal of applied gerontology : the official journal of the Southern Gerontological Society · 2023Article
- Consequences of the Early Phase of the COVID-19 Pandemic for Home-Healthcare Recipients in Norway: A Nursing Perspective.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Essential but Excluded: Building Disaster Preparedness Capacity for Home Health Care Workers and Home Care Agencies.Journal of the American Medical Directors Association · 2022Article
- Home care nurses' perception of the challenges they faced during the COVID-19 pandemic: a qualitative study.BMC nursing · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundHome care (HC) services are crucial to the health and social wellbeing of older adults, people with disabilities, and the chronically ill. Although the HC sector is growing rapidly in the USA, there is high job turnover among the HC aide workforce. HC provides an important alternative to facility-based care, yet it has often been overlooked within the larger health care system: most recently, in COVID-19 pandemic planning. The objective of the study was to characterize qualitatively the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on three key HC stakeholders: clients, aides, and agency managers.
methodsThe study included 37 phone interviews conducted during April - November 2020: HC clients (n = 9), aides (n = 16), and agency managers (n = 12). All interviews were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim. Qualitative analysis of the transcripts followed the grounded theory approach. The interview transcriptions were coded line-by-line into hierarchical themes with NVivo 12 software which allowed weighting of themes based on the number of interviews where they were coded.
resultsFear of infection and transmission among HC clients and aides were strong themes. Infection prevention and control became the top priority guiding day-to-day business operations at agencies; sourcing adequate personal protective equipment for staff was the most urgent task. HC aides expressed concerns for their clients who showed signs of depression, due to increased isolation during the pandemic. The disappearance of comforting touch - resulting from physical distancing practices - altered the expression of compassion in the HC aide-client care relationship.
conclusionsThe findings suggest that the pandemic has further increased psychosocial job demands of HC aides. Increased isolation of clients may be contributing to a wider public health problem of elder loneliness and depression. To support the HC stakeholders during the on-going COVID-19 pandemic, for future pandemic planning or other health emergencies, it is important to improve HC aide job retention. This action could also ease the serious care services shortage among the growing population of older adults.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.