Abstract
A variety of individual/psychological and institutional variables influence patients’ adjustments to life in nursing homes. The present article argues that adjustment to nursing homes is also influenced by the context of peer group and staff‐patient interaction. Ethnographic observation and interviewing were conducted in one American nursing home over a fifteen month period. Both staff and residents placed demands and expectations on newcomers’ conduct. In addition, staff nembers defined what was considered “successful”; and “unsuccessful”; adjustment, with the result that patients were constrained in the range of socially acceptable behavior they were permitted to display.
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