Concept synthesis of dignity in care for elderly facility residents.

BACKGROUND

Protecting the dignity of elderly residents of facilities and providing dignified care can be difficult. Although attempts have been made from several aspects, dignity is considered an area in which less real impact has been made in both theory and practice.

OBJECTIVE

The objective of this study is to characterize the concept of dignity in care for elderly subjects in residential facilities from a practical perspective through concept synthesis.

RESEARCH DESIGN

This study includes in-depth interviews with residents of elderly facilities and a literature review.

PARTICIPANTS AND RESEARCH CONTEXT

A total of 12 residents of seven facilities in three prefectures in Japan were recruited via purposive sampling, and 27 interviews were conducted. Each digitally recorded interview was transcribed verbatim. The interview data were analyzed based on hermeneutic phenomenological research. The literature was searched using PubMed, CINAHL, and Web of Science with combinations of terms such as dignity, elderly, and residential facilities and then selected according to the predefined inclusion criteria. The descriptions about dignity in the included studies were divided into codes and compared with the results of the interviews.

ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS

This study was approved by the institutional review board of Nagoya University's Graduate School of Medicine.

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

There were 1728 data codes for the interviews from which four themes were generated. In the literature review, 3716 titles were searched, and 28 articles were selected. Combining these results, five following themes and a conceptual matrix were obtained: ; ; ; ; and .

CONCLUSION

According to the established matrix, we must consider the role of the care system, facility, family, and society in providing care with dignity and the individual dignity to residents and dignity in daily care.