Behaviors of care providers and resistiveness to oral care of persons living with dementia.

• There is a need to identify specific behaviors of care providers that decrease or prevent resistiveness to care. • Physically controlling persons living with dementia increased their resistiveness to care. • Assessing comfort of persons living with dementia decreased their resistiveness to care. • Tailored oral care suitable for individual needs and preferences is needed. Since care providers' behavior could be related to resistiveness to care (RTC) among persons living with dementia, developing care providers' behavioral strategies to reduce or prevent RTC is required. This study examined whether care providers' person-centered or task-centered behaviors were related to RTC. A secondary data analysis was conducted using 70 videos of 23 persons living with dementia who received routine oral care in long-term care settings. Data were analyzed using linear mixed models. Among task-centered behaviors, "physically controlling" significantly increased RTC. For person-centered behaviors, "cooperatively negotiating" increased RTC, while "assessing comfort" decreased RTC. Care providers need to consider the comfort or needs of persons living with dementia rather than physically controlling them in oral care situations. These findings may offer insight into the context of RTC occurrences to provide more comfortable oral care for persons living with dementia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]