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Life around … : Staff’s Perceptions of Residents’ Adjustment into Long-Term Care*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 August 2010

Elaine C. Wiersma
Elaine C. Wiersma*
Affiliation:
Lakehead University
*
†Correspondence and requests for offprints should be sent to / La correspondance et les demandes de tirés-à-part doivent être adressées à: Elaine C. Wiersma, Ph.D., Master of Public Health Program, Lakehead University, 955 Oliver Rd., Thunder Bay, ON P7B 5E1 (ewiersma@lakeheadu.ca)
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Abstract

The move to a long-term care facility can be particularly traumatic for new residents. Staff can make this transition easier in a number of ways. However, the staff’s perceptions of the transition process and residents’ experiences will play a significant part in determining the type of support that is given residents during the transition. The purpose of this research was to examine the staff’s perceptions of a person’s coming to live in a long-term care environment. Using in-depth interviews with staff from one long-term care facility, three main themes emerged that encompassed descriptions of residents’ lives. Essentially, the staff described how residents learned to live a life involving various factors in three main categories—life around losses, life around the institution, and life around the body.

Résumé

Le déménagement à un établissement de service de soins à long terme peut être particulière-ment traumatique pour de nouveaux résidents. Le personnel peut faciliter cette transition dans un certain nombre de façons. Cependant, les perceptions du personnel du processus de transition et les expériences des résidents joueront un rôle significatif en déterminant le type d’appui qui est donné aux résidents pendant cette transition. Le but de cette recherche était d’examiner les perceptions du personnel d’une personne venant à vivre dans un environnement de soins à long terme. Trois thèmes principaux ont émergé après l’analyse d’entrevues détaillées avec le personnel d’un service de soin à long terme qui englobaient les descriptions de la vie des résidents. Essentiellement, le personnel a décrit comment les résidents ont appris à vivre une vie autour de divers facteurs en trois catégories principaux: une vie autour des pertes, une vie autour de l’établissement résidentiel, et une vie autour du corps.

Keywords

ajustements aux soins de longue duréeexpériences des résidents de soins de longue duréeperceptions du personnel de soins de longue duréeadjustment to long-term careresidents’experiences of long-term carestaff perceptions of long-term care
Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal on Aging / La Revue canadienne du vieillissement , Volume 29 , Issue 3 , September 2010 , pp. 425 - 434
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Association on Gerontology 2010

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Footnotes

*

This research was supported by a Canada Graduate Scholarship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. The author would like to thank Dr. Sherry Dupuis, University of Waterloo, for her assistance and guidance.

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