Institute of Cultural Science, Faculty of Humanities, Philosophy, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark.
The Faculty of Health Sciences, The Unit of Clinical Alcohol Research, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark.
Nurs Philos. 2023 Jan;24(1):e12403. doi: 10.1111/nup.12403. Epub 2022 Jul 31.
Alcohol use has been recognized as a challenge in eldercare and social care, and some anticipate that problems related to alcohol use will increase in the future as the current adult generation has high alcohol consumption rates. Accordingly, it is suggested that care workers are at risk of becoming passive bystanders to the destructive lifestyles of vulnerable older adults and even facilitating these lifestyles. In the present paper, we suggest that alcohol exacerbates and underscores inherent difficulties in eldercare, such as finding an appropriate balance between the personal freedom of the older adult and the responsibility of the care worker to provide care. The specific focus in the paper regard the communication and interaction involving values between people in eldercare in cases of problematic alcohol-related situations to uncover the difficulties. We found it noteworthy that the objectives and perspectives of older adults, care workers, managers and relatives have implications regarding their interactions and communications because their varying experiences involve values that are not necessarily aligned. Sometimes, care workers have no choice but to act against what, in the public sphere and to the other care workers, is ruled out by virtue of their professional ethics. It is suggested that care workers describe and judge situations where alcohol is present paradoxically by virtue of their professional ethics, yet regulate their care to preserve the dignity of older adults, even when they find the situation to be an apparent dilemma.
饮酒问题在老年护理和社会关怀中已经受到关注，一些人预计，随着当前成年一代的高饮酒率，未来与饮酒相关的问题将会增加。因此，有人认为，护理人员有可能对弱势老年人的破坏性生活方式采取被动旁观的态度，甚至助长这些生活方式。在本文中，我们认为，酒精会加剧和突出老年护理中的固有困难，例如在老年个体的个人自由和护理人员提供护理的责任之间找到适当的平衡。本文特别关注在有问题的与酒精相关的情况下，涉及到价值观的老年护理中的沟通和互动，以揭示其中的困难。我们发现，老年人、护理人员、管理人员和亲属的目标和观点对于他们的互动和交流具有重要意义，因为他们不同的经历涉及到不一定一致的价值观。有时，护理人员别无选择，只能违背他们的职业道德，因为在公共领域和其他护理人员看来，这些行为是不被允许的。有人认为，护理人员出于职业道德描述和判断存在酒精的情况，但会调整他们的护理方式，以维护老年人的尊严，即使他们发现这种情况显然是一个困境。
