Abstract
BackgroundMost nursing home residents spend the remainder of their life, until death, within a nursing home. As preserving dignity is an important aim of the care given here, insight into the way residents experience their dignity throughout their entire admission period is valuable.AimTo investigate if and how nursing home residents’ personal dignity changes over the course of time, and what contributes to this.DesignA longitudinal qualitative study.MethodsMultiple in-depth interviews, with an interval of six months, were carried out with 22 purposively sampled nursing home residents of the general medical wards of four nursing homes in The Netherlands. Transcripts were analyzed following the principles of thematic analysis.ResultsFrom admission onwards, some residents experienced an improved sense of dignity, while others experienced a downward trend, a fluctuating one or no change at all. Two mechanisms were especially important for a nursing home resident to maintain or regain personal dignity: the feeling that one is in control of his life and the feeling that one is regarded as a worthwhile person. The acquirement of both feelings could be supported by 1) finding a way to cope with one’s situation; 2) getting acquainted with the new living structures in the nursing home and therefore feeling more at ease; 3) physical improvement (with or without an electric wheelchair); 4) being socially involved with nursing home staff, other residents and relatives; and 5) being amongst disabled others and therefore less prone to exposures of disrespect from the outer world.ConclusionAlthough the direction in which a resident’s personal dignity develops is also dependent on one’s character and coping capacities, nursing home staff can contribute to dignity by creating optimal conditions to help a nursing home resident recover feelings of control and of being regarded as a worthwhile person.
Highlights
Being admitted to a nursing home can have a large impact on peoples’ lives
A German study discovered that nursing home residents placed their personal dignity under the constraints of the need for help and care into question, which could undermine their dignity if a resident was not able to obtain a new perspective on this phase of life [6]
To unravel the factors that contributed to dignity over the course of time, we need to take a closer look at the several developments that nursing home residents experienced during the period of the study, both in the individual, relational and societal domain – and their relation to dignity
Summary
Being admitted to a nursing home can have a large impact on peoples’ lives. This impact can be profound when the transition from living more or less independently at home to living in a nursing home and being dependent is sudden [1,2]. Two mechanisms were especially important for a nursing home resident to maintain or regain personal dignity: the feeling that one is in control of his life and the feeling that one is regarded as a worthwhile person The acquirement of both feelings could be supported by 1) finding a way to cope with one’s situation; 2) getting acquainted with the new living structures in the nursing home and feeling more at ease; 3) physical improvement (with or without an electric wheelchair); 4) being socially involved with nursing home staff, other residents and relatives; and 5) being amongst disabled others and less prone to exposures of disrespect from the outer world. Conclusion: the direction in which a resident’s personal dignity develops is dependent on one’s character and coping capacities, nursing home staff can contribute to dignity by creating optimal conditions to help a nursing home resident recover feelings of control and of being regarded as a worthwhile person
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