Abstract
A recent rapid increase of the elderly population has caused a problem related to the caregiver of diapers in nursing homes. To obtain fundamental data to estimate the workload for various aspects of providing diapers, we surveyed the extent of diaper usage, the physical and mental conditions of diaper users, and the diaper caregiver provisions at 96 nursing homes. As a result, it was found that the rate of diaper users was 62.3% (3,876 persons) of the entire elderly resident population we studied, and that there was a correlation (r=0.86) between the number of diaper users and the number of residents of each home. The physical and mental states were measured by tests commonly used in Japan. The results showed that over 80% of the residents have a certain degree of physical or mental problem and diaper users increased among those with severe physical or mental conditions. About 75% of diaper users possessed both physical and mental problem of certain degrees. For diaper caregiver, diapers were changed 4.0±1.0 times during day duty and 2.8±1.0 times during night duty. The number of diaper users per one caregiver was 4.5±1.2 persons during day duty and 16.2±4.2 during night duty. The homes using two caregivers for diaper change was 36% while the rest used one caregiver. The number of homes using two caregivers was larger in relatively large-scale homes. The present study will provide useful information that is invaluable to estimate the workload of diaper caregiver.
