Abstract
BackgroundAdult children are often key carers of frail older parents providing care for a long period of time in different care contexts. However, research concerning adult children’s caregiving experiences, from providing home-based care to facing the death of a parent in a nursing home is sparse. Thus, the aim was to explore the transition from living at home to moving into and living in a nursing home and the time after death from the perspective of next of kin to an older person.MethodsA qualitative design using individual interviews with 15 adult children of older persons. The text was analysed using inductive content analysis.ResultsOne main category was identified, until death do us part. With three generic categories, living at home, living at a nursing home and time after death, and eight sub-categories. The results describe the transition when an older person lives at home and moves into and lives in a nursing home and the time after death from the perspective of next of kin.ConclusionThis study highlights many examples of tasks that adult children provide over a long period of time and in different care contexts since they felt that professional care was unable to provide safe and secure care for their older parents. It also highlights the importance for staff to recognize the support that next of kin provide. Furthermore, the study reveal that staff do not offer the relief that they are obligated to provide, to enable next of kin coping with this strenuous transition in life. First after the parent died, there was time for relief since the worrying and the doing of practical things for the parent had stopped.Trial registrationCurrent Controlled Trials NCT02708498; date of registration: 26 February 2016.
Highlights
Adult children are often key carers of frail older parents providing care for a long period of time in different care contexts
The analysis of the text resulted in one main category, until death do us part. This main category, generated by three generic categories and eight sub-categories, describes the transition when an older person lives at home and moves into and lives in a nursing home and the time after death from the perspective of of kin
The findings showed that the of kin knew that death was a natural transition, but at the same time – even if the dementia diagnosis and the illness trajectory was described as a loss of a parent – the actual death was something that marked the end of a life -long relation, an end of the identity as a caregiver and loss of a parent
Summary
Adult children are often key carers of frail older parents providing care for a long period of time in different care contexts. Research concerning adult children’s caregiving experiences, from providing homebased care to facing the death of a parent in a nursing home is sparse. The aim was to explore the transition from living at home to moving into and living in a nursing home and the time after death from the perspective of of kin to an older person. Many of kin experience hardship when a family member moves into a nursing home. This hardship is often related to the loss of daily contact with the family member [2]. According to Schumacher & Meleis [14], the concept of transition can be useful when exploring the experience of individuals facing periods of instability, such as the imminent death of a parent
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