The lived experience of daughters whose parents currently live in a residential home

Abstract

The central aim of this study was to dissect the various elements of the participants’ care-giving experience before, during, and after admitting their loved ones to formal long-term care. The emerging data would then shed light upon any areas of concern that lead the demographic in question to require support. Data was obtained via semi-structured interviews with six participants whose parents make use of the same nursing home. The emerging themes were analysed using an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) approach and the results obtained support existing international literature, highlighting the stressful nature of tending to one’s frail relatives. The findings uncover a variety of elements that influence the subjective quality of the participants’ experience with care-giving and nursing home placement (NHP). A sense of filial obligation and duty to care were found to be central motives for care-giving within the sample chosen for this study. Furthermore, prayer and spirituality were common methods of coping throughout the participants’ discourse. Finally, a sense of having control over the decision to admit parents into formal care, coupled with positive relationships with formal carers and non-familial residents, were found to appreciably enhance the resultant experience of NHP. The findings confirm the necessity for open communication between informal caregivers and service providers, in order to avoid conflicting views of care and enhance the overall experience for all parties involved by taking their needs and preferences into consideration. Future research can opt to extrapolate recurring themes from the experience of caregivers in other nursing-home contexts around the island, in order to provide a wider breadth of information.