Useful lessons for the provision of services in long-term care facilities in South Korea: operators’ experiences illuminate the phenomenon of working with the elderly in the field

ABSTRACT

Purpose: The aim of this study was to gain a deeper understanding of elderly long-term care facilities by focusing on insights provided by the operators of these facilities.

Methods: In this phenomenological study, 10 participants who operated nursing home businesses were interviewed. Of the 10 participants, seven had graduated from a nursing programme and three had studied social welfare.

Results: The experiences of facility operators could be organized into four themes: “Starting as a facility operator”, “Dream of an ideal long-term care facility”, “Struggling desperately in practice”, and “Obtaining hope by providing care”. These four themes were divided into 18 subthemes, constituting 96 meaningful statements.

Conclusion: Despite the obvious gap between reality and ideals with regard to caring for residents, operators used a person-centred care strategy for the elderly at their facilities. Our findings indicate that, despite diverse barriers and hardships, participants were encouraged when they offered person-centred healthcare services for the elderly under their care, based on a philosophy of a holistic understanding of humans and respect for human life and dignity. Facility operators who are leaders in the practical field should be involved in the decision/policy-making process, to support health and well-being in the elderly in institutionalized settings.

KEYWORDS:

• Qualitative research
• phenomenological studies
• Colaizzi’s seven steps
• long-term care
• person-centered care

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF), funded by the Korean government [grant number 2012R1A1A3010182]. This work was supported by the research fund of Hanyang University (HY-201300000003182).

Notes on contributors

Young Ran Tak

Young Ran Tak, PhD, RN is a Professor and Dean of School of Nursing and Graduate School of Information and Cliical Nursing in Hanyang University. She has been a principal investigator (PI) and co-PI on numerous studies related to her research interest, such as social support, family resilience, and healing envinroment for elderly or people with dementia living in the community.

Hae Young Woo

Hae Young Woo, PhD, RN, teaches Adult Health Nursing, Pathophysiology, Healing Environment for elderly, she is also adjunct professor in the School of Nursing, Hanyang University. She has been a project manager of the research project, titled Korean-version of Long-term Care Facility Environment Evaluation System and Therapeutic Design Solution. Her research interest is in person-centered care and healing environment for elderly and their familly.

Lee Han Yi

Lee Han Yi, PhD, RN, teaches Community Health Nursing, Middle-aged Health Nursing, and Nursing Research, she is also an Assistant Professor in the School of Nursing, Hanyang University. She has been a coordinator of the research project, titled Korean-version of Long-term Care Facility Environment Evaluation System and Therapeutic Design Solution. Her research interest is in Children Health in Community.

Ah Rim Kim

Ah Rim Kim, PhD, RN, teaches Children and Family Health, Psychiatric Health Nursing, as a part-time lecturer in the School of Nursing, Hanyang University. She has been participated in a research projects, titled FAMILY-KIT (Family Attachment Multicomponent Intervention Lead for You-Korean Integrated Tailored) Program Design and Solution and Research and Service of Health Promoting Environment for Elderly in Community during her doctorate. Her research interest is in family-centered care, caring environment, socioemotional development and children and maternal health.