Abstract
To understand the challenges experienced by Portuguese workers in humanitude care for institutionalized elderly people during the pandemic. This is a qualitative study, supported by reflections on the Humanitude Care Methodology, carried out with workers from different areas in a nursing home for elderly people in Portugal. Data collection took place between September and October 2020, from individual and online interviews. The categorization proposed by Bardin was adopted as the analysis technique. Three categories emerged: (1) self-protection and of the other with the subcategories fear of being contaminated and fear of contaminating the elderly; (2) maintenance of affective relationships, broken down into the subcategories absence of family members in the nursing home and personal protective equipment as a barrier to communication and approximation; and (3) confinement of the elderly who attended the Day Center, with the subcategories lack of family support/loneliness and change in the elderly's routine. The main challenges experienced by Portuguese workers are related to the necessary changes in the performance of care practices due to the use of personal protection that was not used before, limitations in affective relationships, and restrictions in interaction spaces.
Highlights
Coronavirus Disease 2019 (Covid-19) is the first pandemic of the 21st century, with a humanitarian cost that has surpassed 221,134,742 confirmed cases worldwide, resulting in 4,574,089 deaths by the beginning of September 2021
The category “Self-protection and of the other” is supported by two subcategories integrating the challenges workers experienced during the development of their attributions in humanitude care for elderly living in the ERPI in Portugal during the pandemic
In the first subcategory “Fear of being contaminated”, caregivers reported their fears and how they found, in Humanitude Care Methodology (HCM), a safe and effective way to continue caring in a humanized way: the entire team is very afraid of Covid, we are afraid of getting sick, afraid that our family members get sick (...) humanitude helped us (...) we knew that care for the elderly needed to be p rovided, and based on this affective relationship founded on the pillars and principles of humanitude, we knew that we would be able to keep everyone well (E3)
Summary
Coronavirus Disease 2019 (Covid-19) is the first pandemic of the 21st century, with a humanitarian cost that has surpassed 221,134,742 confirmed cases worldwide, resulting in 4,574,089 deaths by the beginning of September 2021. In ERPIs, the elderly are cared for by health care workers, who have suffered and are still intensely affected by the repercussions of the pandemic, being daily exposed to biological risks, work overload and psychological distress. Such workers experience psychological pressure in the face of the possibility of getting infected and spreading the disease to people under their care, generating anxiety, fear, depression, insomnia and anguish[3]
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