Nursing Home Abuse Summary

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Between 2000 and 2007, approximately 20% of nursing homes, per year, received a citation for abuse, equaling about 34,644 citations for violations of abuse, neglect by staff, criminal screening, investigating and reporting or abuse prevention (Castle, 2011). These high rates of violation are likely because of the vulnerability of the residents. Many residents have cognitive, behavioral or physical impairments, which studies have argued are risk factors for neglect and abuse (National Research Council Panel to Review et al., 2003). Other studies have linked abuse and other aggressive behaviors in nursing homes to stressful working conditions (Shinan-Altman & Cohen, 2009). As frontline workers, who work directly with clients, it is possible that this abuse from nursing home staff is a mechanism of coping. …show more content…
In his seminal work on Street-Level Bureaucracy, Lipsky introduces the idea that street-level bureaucrats handle the stressors of frontline work through coping. In his piece (1980) he describes the work of these bureaucrats as having a built-in contradiction between exercising discretion in response to clients and the need to process clients through routines, stereotypes and other ways of facilitating work. Workers handle the stresses of this contradiction through coping (p. 140).
Since Lipsky, scholars of public administration have continued to tie coping with street-level bureaucrats (Nielsen, 2006; Tummers & Rocco, 2015). Literature on individual determinants of coping style in public service delivery is lacking, especially on