Browsing by Author "Boman, Sonja"

Goals: The purpose of this master thesis is to explore if the self-determination of elderly care workers developed among the users of ITU!-handbook in Toimi-project. The background theory of this master thesis is self-determination theory. Toimi-Project is a project carried out by Institute of Occupational Health in collaboration with elderly care cities of Helsinki, Vantaa and Lohja and Senior Care Home Association (Mereo). The aim of Toimi-project is to support readiness of workers to develop and reform their own work, in other words develop the worker's development agency. One of the methods was use of the ITU!-handbook. The data of this study consist of before and after interviews of the users of the ITU!-handbook. The aim is to explore how the data regarding interviews self-determination of the elderly care workers differs between before and after i. Methods: These questions were addressed by a qualitative deductive content analysis. The data were collected by theme interview. These interviews were randomly selected from a bigger interview database. Work-related Basic Need Satisfaction scale was used as an aid to the identification of psychological basic needs of the material. After this, the findings were analyzed by deductive content analysis according to basic psychological needs. The results of the survey were interpreted from the perspective of the theory of self-determination. Results and conclusions: There were no differences in the fulfilment of the need of autonomy between before and after interviews. The fulfilment of the need of competence occurred between before and after interviews in various ways. ITU!-handbook made the informants think of using feedback from the elderly while reforming their work. This gives an indication that using the ITU!-handbook added the fulfilment of the need of competence. The fulfilment of relatedness occurred also in different ways in before and after interviews. The problems which occurred in before interviews seemed to have disappeared with the Toimi-project. Based on the after interviews the ITU!-handbook encouraged the workers' interaction among themselves about different working styles and reminded of the importance of a colleague's appreciation. ITU!-handbook reminded of the importance of working atmosphere and using the ITU!-handbook seemed to contribute positively to work atmosphere based on the interviews. In conclusion, using the ITU!-handbook developed self-determination of the elderly care workers by confirming especially the fulfilment of competence and relatedness.