Long-Term Care Facilities and Nursing Homes during the First Wave of the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Scoping Review of the Perspectives of Professionals, Families and Residents

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has had significant repercussions for nursing home residents, their families, and professionals. The objective was to describe the perspectives of residents, their families, and nursing home employees during the COVID-19 pandemic. A scoping review was carried out using the PRISMA Extension for Scoping Reviews. The inclusion criteria were: qualitative and/or mixed methods studies in English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish. The review covers studies published from 11 March 2020 to 15 February 2021. CINAHL, PubMed, Web of Science, ScienceDirect, Scopus, British Nursing Index, Proquest, PsycInfo, and Google Scholar databases were used. We conducted a systematic narrative synthesis, presenting the results narratively and showing descriptive statistics on the studies reviewed. Sixteen documents were obtained from 175 results. Two studies focused on residents and one on their families. The remaining studies looked at professionals. Nursing homes had great difficulty managing resources, which was exacerbated by emotional exhaustion among residents, employees, and family members. In nursing homes, creative initiatives and new forms of leadership appeared to meet emerging needs during the pandemic. The results of the study show the impact of the pandemic on nursing homes and the response capacity present among residents, family members, and professionals.

2022 Alzheimer's disease facts and figures

“…The COVID-19 pandemic adds to the danger experienced by these essential workers, with some studies forecasting increased burnout, turnover and staff shortages as a result. [619][620][621][622] According to "Making Care Work Pay," 610 shortages of direct care workers often leave care recipients and families scrambling to fill the gaps. As a result, many care recipients may find themselves unable to live as independently as they had hoped, moving to residential care settings sooner than they had planned and facing worsening health outcomes.…”

“…According to the Paraprofessional Healthcare Institute's “Workplace Injuries and the Direct Care Workforce,” 618 in 2016 the number of injuries per 10,000 workers was 144 among personal care aides, 116 among home health aides and 337 among nursing assistants, compared with 100 per 10,000 workers across all occupations in the United States. The COVID‐19 pandemic adds to the danger experienced by these essential workers, with some studies forecasting increased burnout, turnover and staff shortages as a result 619–622 …”

The Experience of COVID-19 Visitor Restrictions among Families of People Living in Long-Term Residential Care Facilities during the First Wave of the Pandemic in Ireland

“…While there is emerging evidence that the restrictions have impacted negatively on the psychological and emotional well-being of families [ 15 ], there is limited in depth data on their experience of these restrictions [ 18 , 19 ]. Hence, this paper presents the reflections from 120 families during the ‘harshest’ visitor restrictions to LTRCF in Ireland during the first wave of COVID-19.…”

Entscheidungen treffen in Pandemiezeiten

“…Mit diesen Hauptthemen wird die Dialektik von Teilhabe und Gesundheitsschutz angesprochen sowie auf die Organisationsebene fokussiert. Ähnliche Herausforderungen für die Leitungsebene in Pflegeheimen wurden auch aus anderen Ländern berichtet [ 16 ]. Leitungspersonen mussten weitreichende Entscheidungen treffen, um Forderungen und Vorgaben erfüllen zu können.…”