Quality of institutional elderly care in Slovenia

Abstract

<div lang="en" class="abs"><p class="abs_header">Abstract</p><p>Elderly people, because of the frail health condition and consequent problems, have in most cases substantial difficulties living at home. Despite the need for widened nursing home custody, the field of quality institutional elderly care in Slovenia in the past did not undergo comprehensive research.</p><p>The purpose of this two-part study was to investigate the quality of institutional elderly care and elderly care offered in Slovenian nursing homes. Additional purpose was to evaluate nursing staff members about their willingness, knowledge, skills and importance to meet residents’ physical and psychosocial nursing care needs. Also, a part of this research was bound for recognition of maltreatment and nursing staff members’ well-being. </p><p>The qualitative and quantitative research methods were used. The quality of institutional elderly care and elderly care offered were researched by interviewing the parties involved in elderly care, residents, relatives and nursing staff members (N=48). The data for quantitative research was collected by surveying nursing staff by using a structured questionnaire (N=148). All data have been collected in three public and one private nursing home located in two major cities of Ljubljana and Maribor. Collected data was examined by content analysis method and statistical analysis, to corroborate findings across data sets, reducing the impact of potential biases that can exist in a single study. Triangulation was used to approach to data analysis to synthesize data from multiple sources. </p><p>Main categories of quality institutional elderly were formulated as attentive care, optimal custody and holistic approach. The most important issue of quality institutional elderly care was formulated as meeting needs on time. Nursing staff members were found to be better skilled in meeting physical than psychosocial needs of residents. Maltreatment was recognised as neglect of care due to postponed duties or hastiness in nursing interventions resulting in discomfort of residents. Factors in connection to quality of institutional elderly care were expressed as quality of nursing care, friendly relationship, meaningful activities, pleasant dwelling environment and versatile assistance. </p><p>The obtained findings were presented in form of proposals to improve quality of institutional elderly care in Slovenian nursing homes, and could be used to develop institutional elderly care and improve dwelling. In addition many specific terms have been extracted during the analysis process that may contribute to development of gerontological nursing care rationale in Slovenia. </p></div>