A new measure of professional caregiver coping in long-term care: The LTC COPE

INTRODUCTION: The professional caregiver workforce (nursing assistants and personal care aides) is critical to quality of care and quality of life in nursing home (NH) and assisted living (AL) settings. The work is highly stressful, so improving responses to stress in this workforce could contribute to satisfaction and retention. This research developed a coping measure appropriate for the diverse professional caregiver workforce. METHODS: A multistage process identified and refined existing and new items. Ten racially and ethnically diverse professional caregivers advised on item selection and refinement. Subsequently, using an online QR code-accessed questionnaire, data were collected from 391 professional caregivers from 10 NHs and 3 AL communities in three states, yielding a sample that was 87% female, widely distributed in age and experience, and racially/ethnically diverse (42% Black, non-Hispanic/Latinx; 25% White, non-Hispanic/Latinx; 20% Hispanic/Latinx; 7% Asian, non-Hispanic/Latinx; and 21% born outside the United States). Analyses examined psychometric properties and principal components analysis identified factors within which items and scales aggregated. RESULTS: The final instrument, named the Long-Term Care Cope (LTC Cope), includes 26 items aggregated into six factors, which explained 60% of the variance: avoidance (five items, loadings 0.58–0.76); adaptive psychological strategies (six items, loadings 0.33–0.89); active engagement (five items, 0.47–0.89); maladaptive psychological strategies (three items, loadings 0.90–0.93); actions to minimize emotional impact (four items, loadings 0.28–0.74); and substance use (three items, loadings 0.61–0.88). Respondents often reported using multiple items within multiple factors when responding to stressful situations at work. DISCUSSION: The coping strategies of professional caregivers are highly individual, with caregivers tending to utilize multiple strategies. The LTC Cope instrument and its component subscales are promising for future research to improve understanding of stress-related coping in this diverse workforce and inform and evaluate interventions. Highlights: A new measure was developed to help us better understand how professional caregivers (nursing assistants and personal care aides) deal with work-related stress. Professional caregivers in nursing homes and assisted living tend to use multiple approaches to deal with job stress. Ways professional caregivers cope with stress vary widely—some address problems directly, some try to deal with the emotional toll of the work, and others involve avoiding the problems or their emotional consequences.