Increasing direct care staff compliance to program implementation by providing supervisors with prescriptive checklists

Abstract

Effective treatment programs for multi-handicapped mentally retarded persons may require consistent compliance to program implementation. Traditional methods used to increase direct care staff compliance to treatment programs in residential facilities are often ineffective. This study investigated the effects of workshops and providing direct care staff supervisors with a training and management tool, prescriptive checklists, on increasing compliance by direct care staff to 14 individual client physical therapy body positioning prescriptions. Scores on a posttest in the workshop suggested that supervisory and direct care staff understood the principles of body positioning; however, increased compliance was not observed until the introduction of the supervisors' checklist, which resulted in a mean increase of 28% in compliance across all clients. This study confirms previous research indicating that workshop training is an ineffective method of increasing direct care staff compliance to treatment programs and that providing direct care staff supervisors with a training and management tool is an effective alternative.