Exploring the Experience and Coping Strategies for Encountering Sexual Harassment of Female Home Helpers

• Main Authors: HSU, JU-JUNG, 許如容
• Other Authors: CHEN, HUI-TZU
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2015
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/50268041972490578212

碩士 === 輔仁大學 === 護理學系碩士班 === 103 === ABSTRACT The purpose of this study is to understand the female home helpers’ experience, feeling and coping strategies in suffering sexual harassment. We employed a semi-structured interviewto collect the information from listen their narrative experience.There were 8 harassment cases provided by 7 informants who worked for a home care agency in the northern Taiwan. All of the interview were taped and transcribed into text right after the interview finished. The result derived from the narrative text included: the sexual harassment seems inevitable in the career of being a home helpers in providing personal care to the male clients, Harassment might occur at the very beginning of home service or latter on, some harassers were the clients themselves, some were their family members. All those harassers were middle age or elderly. Verbal harassment seems come first, including insult, ridicule and inquires personal privacy; nonverbal or physical harassment come later such as exposure of personal privacy and infringement;the most unbearable physical harassment is to grip the chest, to touch the buttocks or personal privacy. In terms of the place, bathroom was the most common for the clients;living room is the most common place for the family members’ harassers. Emotional discomfort include be angry,not be respected, betreated rudely, "be insulted", "be astonished by theharassment" etc. The coping strategies employed by the informants in this study including emotional oriented andproblem-solving oriented. The junior informants adopted much more negatively emotional strategies; the senior informants used more problem-solving oriented strategies. However, the home services supervisors were regarded as the foremost supportive resources. There were two recommendations, at the organizational level, to provide in-service education in encountering the sexual harassment in the home services setting. At the policy level, to create a friendly workplace to prevent the possibility of sexual harassment. Key words: sexual harassment, home helper, long-term care