The experience of dependence on homecare among people ageing at home
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https://hdl.handle.net/10037/26000Date
2022-03-09Type
Journal articleTidsskriftartikkel
Peer reviewed
Abstract
Being dependent on homecare potentially threatens a person’s integrity and autonomy,
particularly when people are dependent on help to manage basic bodily functions that
involve intimacy and nudity, making the person vulnerable despite being in his or her
own home. As the population continues to age and live longer, more people are expected
to be dependent on homecare. The aim of this study was to investigate the phenomenon of
dependence on homecare among people ageing at home. Individual in-depth interviews
were used to explore 15 Danish and Norwegian homecare receivers’ experiences of
dependence on homecare. Interview records were transcribed and analysed in a hermeneutical phenomenological process described by van Manen. First and foremost, the experience of dependence on homecare is a question of adaption. The older people in this study
struggled to get used to their deteriorating body and at the same time they continuously
had to negotiate to get care in accordance with their values. Being dependent on care
could be experienced as being reduced to a task or a problem to be solved though the participants had a significant need for undivided mental attention. The presence of homecare
staff in the participants’ homes could entail a change where the participants experienced
that they lost control over the surroundings. According to the voices of the older people in
this study, future homecare should be accommodated in an organisational set-up that
gives priority to stability and continuity in the relation between the homecare receiver
and the homecare staff. Also it is significant that homecare staff do not have a taskoriented approach to their job and are sensitive to the values of the homecare receivers.
Publisher
Cambridge University PressCitation
Martinsen, Norlyk, Gramstad. The experience of dependence on homecare among people ageing at home. Ageing & Society. 2022Metadata
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