Perspectives on residential involvement and engagement in everyday life–a qualitative study

Abstract

Background: Worldwide, the population is ageing, and the need for nursing homes is increasing. institutionalization and a culture change from task-orientated care delivery towards increased involvement and engagement in a meaningful everyday life are evolving and, thus, contributing to nursing home residents’ quality of life and well-being.

Aims/Objectives: To explore nursing home staff’s and local managers’ perspectives on everyday life with a specific focus on involvement and engagement.

Material and Methods: Positioned within interpretivism and hermeneutics, a qualitative exploratory design was applied using individual and group interviews for data generation and abductive thematic analysis as the analytical method.

Results: Through the analyses, three main themes appeared—A good day–Everyday life in a nursing home, Doing together–involvement in Everyday life and Involvement in Everyday life–difficult to practice—together with four subthemes—Home and people within, Knowing and relating to the person, If they can - they must and Service and Habits.

Conclusions: Fulfilling the needs of both residents and the institution was found to be challenging by nursing home staff and local managers.

Significance: A different approach to care, facilitated by, for example, occupational therapists, might be required to enable increased involvement and engagement in everyday life.

Keywords:

• Engagement
• everyday life
• involvement
• nursing home
• nursing home staff
• occupation
• qualitative

Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge the contribution of the nursing home staff and managers; without their hospitality and forthcomingness, we would not have been able to conduct this study.

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

None.