Residents’ perceptions of dignity in nursing homes for older persons : a Maltese case-study

Abstract

Dignified-centred care is particularly warranted for older persons in nursing homes, whose life worlds are embedded in the social imaginary of the fourth age. Nevertheless, many research studies reported opposite trends, highlighting how in many nursing homes the provision of care is anything but dignified. This chapter reports on a study that sought to further our knowledge on that interface between dignity, care and wellbeing in later life by investigating the perception of dignity of 14 residents in a nursing home for older people in Malta. Residents in this study experienced violations of their dignity through ‘not being seen’, as if they were invisible, ‘being seen but only as a member of a group’, the sick and mentally infirm, ‘violations of personal space’, treated as patients in an acute hospital setting, and ‘humiliation’, as their personhood and bodily failings were exposed for everybody to see. This study affirmed international literature that for residents in nursing homes, the preservation of their maximum functional capacity and societal integration is crucial to allow an optimal degree of dignity in their lives.