Complaints toward Home Help Service Providers —Relation between Complaints and Provider’s Systems, Cooperation with Care Manager—

Abstract

The current study clarified the contents of complaint from users of home help services and examined the relation between complaint and provider’s systems, cooperation with care managers. The research design was a cross-sectional survey with mailed questionnaire. The subjects were 832 administrators in home care services in Osaka City that selected from the lists in computer networks (WAM-NET). The response rate was 85.6％. we analyzed 366 replies from administrators in home help services.

The results indicated that the main complaint were (1) problems in matching with service users and home helpers, (2) fees for home help services. The other results showed that the factors increasing complaint were (1) heavy caseloads, (2) increase in number of service rejections, (3) poor cooperation with care managers, (4) decrease in the degree of reflection of user’s needs to a care plan.

The findings suggested that user-driven service systems and cooperation between home help service providers and care managers could be avoidable complaint in home help service as well as assure the quality of service. Additionally, it was concluded that the role of responsible helper for service was very important.