Riekkola Jenni, Rutberg Stina, Lilja Margareta, Isaksson Gunilla
Department of Health Sciences, Division of Health and Rehabilitation, Luleå University of Technology, SE-971 87 Luleå, Sweden.
J Aging Stud. 2019 Mar;48:60-66. doi: 10.1016/j.jaging.2019.01.005. Epub 2019 Jan 25.
The aim of this study was to explore how elderly couples, who are in need of social services in the community, act and reason over time regarding their everyday togetherness. Data were generated through repeated interviews and participant observations with three older couples. A narrative method was used for data generation and analysis. The findings present four parallel narratives illustrating how the couples, over time, strove to continue living their lives in togetherness despite the many challenges that had emerged. These narratives show the complexity and variety of strategies that the couples adopted to handle different situations of everyday life and the couples' experiences and feelings connected to these situations. The strategies that the couples used resulted, for example, in performing more activities together in another way, using respite care and reorganizing their social interactions. The spousal caregiver had a leading role to manage day-to-day life and to initiate and perform the strategies. Simultaneously, an important reciprocity existed in their relationship that gave meaning to their efforts of sustaining togetherness. These findings give a deeper understanding of the complexity of their situation and of how meaning is created in their everyday life through enacted togetherness. The findings highlight the need for professionals within social services in the community to embrace a couple's whole situation, involving both partners.
本研究的目的是探讨社区中需要社会服务的老年夫妇如何随着时间推移在日常相处中表现和思考。通过对三对老年夫妇进行反复访谈和参与观察来收集数据。采用叙事方法进行数据收集和分析。研究结果呈现了四个平行的叙事，说明了这些夫妇如何随着时间推移，尽管出现了许多挑战，仍努力继续共同生活。这些叙事展示了夫妇们为应对日常生活中不同情况所采用策略的复杂性和多样性，以及与这些情况相关的夫妇经历和感受。例如，夫妇们使用的策略包括以另一种方式一起开展更多活动、利用临时护理以及重新组织社交互动。配偶照顾者在管理日常生活以及发起和实施这些策略方面发挥着主导作用。同时，他们的关系中存在着重要的互惠性，这赋予了他们维持共同生活努力的意义。这些发现更深入地理解了他们情况的复杂性，以及通过共同行动在日常生活中如何创造意义。研究结果强调社区社会服务领域的专业人员需要全面考虑夫妇双方的整体情况。
