Nursing Home Residents’ Relocation to Another Facility: an Exploratory Study of Family Caregiver Experiences

ABSTRACT

Over time, family caregivers for older adults may face care transitions for their loved ones. The move from home to residential care facility is a much-studied transition. Yet we know little of family caregiver experiences when their loved ones move from one facility to another. We interviewed family caregivers of nursing home residents and inquired about caregiver experiences in prior facilities and factors that prompted moving to another facility. Our analysis identified three themes: 1) A precursor of moving to another facility was caregivers’ assessment of poor fit between their family member and the facility; 2) Executing a move was demanding for the caregiver in instrumental and emotional ways; 3) Once in the new facility, caregivers adapted their caregiving to the capacity of the new facility and fostered resident-facility fit (not interfering with good care and supplementing facility care). Findings suggest that family caregivers continually assess and respond to emerging problems with resident-facility fit, which sometimes escalate and necessitate a move to another facility. Nursing home social workers are well-positioned to help families address emerging care problems, so they do not escalate. Doing so can promote care continuity, which benefits both the resident and the family caregiver.

KEYWORDS:

• Long-Term care
• residential care facilities
• nursing homes
• relocations
• family caregivers

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The project described was supported by award number QUE 15-271 from the US Veterans Health Administration’s Quality Enhancement Research Initiative (QUERI). The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position or policy of the US Department of Veterans Affairs or the United States government