Nature of the Work:
Nursing aides are sometimes known as nursing assistants or hospital attendants, and work under the supervision of registered and licensed practical nurses. Typical duties include answering patients' call bells, delivering messages, serving meals, making beds, and feeding, dressing, and bathing patients. Aides may also give massages, take temperatures, pulse, respiration, and blood pressure, and assist patients in getting in and out of bed and walking. They may also escort patients to operating and examining rooms or store and move supplies in hospital pharmacies or supply rooms.
Nursing aides employed in nursing homes are sometimes called geriatric aides and, like nursing aides, work under the supervision of registered and licensed practical nurses. They are often the principal caregivers in nursing homes, having far more contact with residents than other members of the staff. They furnish virtually all of the routine care. They take and record vital signs such as temperature and pulse, provide skin care to comatose or paralyzed patients, help residents in and out of bed, and assist with the bathing, dressing, feeding and toileting of residents. Since residents may stay in a nursing home for months or even years, aides are expected to develop ongoing relationships with them and respond to them in a positive, caring way.
Psychiatric aides, also known as mental health assistants, psychiatric nursing assistants, or ward attendants, care for mentally impaired or emotionally disturbed individuals. They work under a team that may include psychiatrists, psychologists, psychiatric nurses, social workers, and therapists. In addition to helping patients dress, bathe, groom, and eat, psychiatric aides socialize with patients.
Psychiatric aides may play games such as cards with the patients, watch television with them, or participate in group activities that are designed to. Elicit behavior changes. They observe patients and report any signs or actions which might be important for the professional staff to know. If necessary, they help restrain unruly patients. Because they have the closest contact with patients, psychiatric aides have a great deal of influence on patients' outlook and treatment.
Working Conditions:
Most full-time aides work about 40 hours a week or less. Because patients need care 24 hours a day, scheduled work hours include evenings, nights, weekends, and holidays. Workers spend many hours standing and may have to move partially paralyzed patients in and out of bed or help them stand or walk.
Nursing aides often empty bed pans, change soiled bed linens, and care for disoriented and irritable patients. Psychiatric aides are sometimes confronted with violent patients. While such experiences can be emotionally draining, many gain personal satisfaction from assisting those in need.
Employment:
Almost half of all nursing aides worked in nursing homes, and about one-quarter worked in hospitals and State and county mental institutions. Almost all psychiatric aides worked in psychiatric hospitals, State and county mental institutions, or private psychiatric facilities.
Training, Other Qualifications, and Advancement:
In many cases, neither a high school diploma nor previous work experience is necessary for jobs as nursing and psychiatric aides. A few employers, however, require some training or experience. Hospitals, for example, may require a minimum of 1 year's experience as a nursing aide or home health aide.
Nursing homes, however, generally hire untrained and inexperienced workers with the understanding that the aide must complete 75 hours of mandatory training and pass a written exam within 4 months of employment. Still, for most jobs, personal qualifications such as dependability, integrity, and a pleasant manner are the principal requirements.
Since employers often accept applicants who are 17 or 18 years of age, these occupations offer young people an entry into the world of work. The availability of night and weekend hours also provides high school and college students a chance to work during the school year. The work is also open to middle-aged and older men and women.
Nursing aide training is offered in high schools, vocational-technical centers, some nursing homes, and community colleges. It covers body mechanics, nutrition, anatomy and physiology, infection control, and communications skills. They also teach personal care skills such as the bathing, feeding, and grooming of patients.
Some facilities, other than nursing homes, provide classroom instruction for newly hired aides, while others rely exclusively on informal instruction from a licensed nurse or an experienced aide. Such training may last several days to a few months. From time to time, aides may also attend lectures, workshops, and other forms of in-service training.
Applicants should be healthy, tactful, patient, understanding, emotionally stable, dependable, and have a desire to help people. They should also be able to work as part of a team, and be willing to perform repetitive, routine tasks.
Opportunities for advancement within these occupations are limited. Career ladders, where they exist at all, are very short. Nonetheless, the large and rapidly growing health industry with its hundreds of occupations and numerous employment settings offers alternative job opportunities for aides who undertake additional training. Some employers and unions provide career advancement opportunities by simplifying the educational paths to advancement. Experience as an aide can also help individuals decide whether the health care field is for them.
Job Outlook:
Job prospects for nursing aides are expected to be excellent through the year. Employment of nursing aides is expected to grow much faster than the average for all occupations in response to an emphasis on rehabilitation and the long-term care needs of a rapidly growing aged population, those who are 75 years old and older.
Employment will increase as a result of the anticipated expansion of nursing homes and other long-term care facilities for people with chronic illnesses and disabling conditions, many of whom are elderly. As a result, long-term care settings, not hospitals, are expected to provide most of the new jobs for nursing aides in the years to come. Also contributing to the growing demand will be modem medical technology which, while saving more lives, also increases the need to provide care for those who never fully recover.
Hospitals will continue to provide intensive, high-technology care that demands the skills of highly trained personnel such as registered nurses. As a result, employment growth for nursing aides in hospitals is not expected to be as fast as total hospital employment growth.
Employment of psychiatric aides is expected to grow about as fast as the average for all occupations. Demand for inpatient psychiatric care may rise due to the very sharp increase in the number of older persons, many of whom experience severe depression or are unable to recognize friends and relatives. Demand for care in private psychiatric facilities, community mental health centers, and halfway houses is likely to grow for several reasons, including greater health insurance coverage for acute psychiatric episodes; growing public acceptance of formal treatment for drug abuse and alcoholism; and a lessening of the stigma attached to those receiving mental health care. While employment in private psychiatric facilities may grow, employment in public mental hospitals is likely to be stagnant due to constraints on public spending.
Replacement needs will constitute the major source of openings for aides. Turnover is high, a reflection of modest entry requirements, low pay, minimal benefits, and lack of advancement opportunities.
Attendants in hospitals and similar institutions generally receive at least 1 week's paid vacation after 1 year of service. Paid holidays and sick leave, hospital and medical benefits, extra pay for late-shift work, and pension plans also are available to many hospital and some nursing home employees.
Related Occupations:
Nursing aides help with the routine care and treatment of people who are sick, disabled, or infirm. Workers with similar duties include homemaker- home health aides, childcare attendants, companions, occupational therapy aides, and physical therapy aides.
Psychiatric aides work in mental health settings. Among professional occupations found in such settings are psychologists, psychiatrists, registered nurses, social workers, human services workers, mental health technicians, and physical, occupational, and recreational therapists.
