OBJECTIVES : This paper aimed to explore the quality of care workers in long-term care (LTC) institutions in Zhejiang Province, including demographic characteristics, knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP). In addition, to find related factors to improve quality of care workers.

METHODS : A cross-sectional survey was conducted from April to June in 2016 in Zhejiang. Ten LTC institutions was randomly selected using a cluster random sampling method, including four institutions in Xihu District and six institutions in Lanxi County. Totally 84 caregivers were interviewed face-to-face with a unified questionnaire. Multiple linear regression were used to find the related factors to KAP. Structural equation modeling was conducted to explore the pathways among KAP and influencing factors.

RESULTS : The study found that most of care workers in Zhejiang Province were middle-aged female with diploma below middle school. There are many care workers hadn’t received any pre-job training. Their salary was low although they undertook high-intensive work. The average knowledge, attitude, and practice score was 17.11 ± 3.34, 48.15 ± 3.71 and 5.58 ± 1.36, their full score was 23, 65 and 7, respectively. Education and working years had positive effect on knowledge and practice score, pre-job training had positive effect on attitude score. What's more, we found that nursing knowledge could affect nursing practice through nursing attitude.

CONCLUSIONS : The quality of care workers in Zhejiang Province was low. Continuous and regular elderly care training should be provided for the care workers to improve their ageing-care knowledge and hence the quality of elderly care.