Aspects of indignity in nursing home residences as experienced by family caregivers

Abstract

The overall purpose of this cross-country Nordic study was to gain further knowledge about maintaining and promoting dignity in nursing home residents. The purpose of this article is to present results pertaining to the following question: How is nursing home residents' dignity maintained, promoted or deprived from the perspective of family caregivers? In this article, we focus only on indignity in care. This study took place at six different nursing home residences in Sweden, Denmark and Norway. Data collection methods in this part of this study consisted of individual research interviews. Altogether, the sample consisted of 28 family caregivers of nursing home residents. The empirical material was interpreted using a hermeneutical approach. The overall theme that emerged was as follows: 'A feeling of being abandoned'. The sub-themes are designated as follows: deprived of the feeling of belonging, deprived of dignity due to acts of omission, deprived of confirmation, deprived of dignity due to physical humiliation, deprived of dignity due to psychological humiliation and deprived of parts of life.

Maintaining dignity in vulnerability: A qualitative study of the residents’ perspective on dignity in nursing homes

“…This understanding reduces vulnerability to the functioning body regardless of the psycho-socio-cultural context the residents are in, and it ignores the role of the nursing home environment. From a family carers´ perspective of dignity, vulnerability was experienced as a feeling of being abandoned (Nåden et al 2013). In an illness context of dignity, it was shown that vulnerability is an issue of functional incapacity (Oosterveld-Vlug et al 2013a).…”

Dignity, Dependence, and Relational Autonomy for Older People Living in Nursing Homes

“…As our findings show, residents living in nursing homes may experience all these types of threat in the care-relationship. This result is also supported by findings from interviews with family members on how they experience the care for their loved ones in nursing homes (Nåden et al, 2013).Their loved one may be seen as a number within a group, the resident group. Their personal space may be violated every day when the care workers help the old and frail person with daily care, which is often of an intimate character.…”

Dignity in long-term care

“…18 Dignity has been defined in many different ways and the model presented by Nordenfelt is often referred to as providing a comprehensive definition of the concept. 3,6,8,[18][19][20][21][22] Nordenfelt's four notions are as follows:…”

“…3 Of the literature reviewed on the subject, eight authors agree that it is easier to describe undignified care. [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10] There have also been suggestions that dignity is a vague and nebulous concept detached from the reality of care delivery.…”