The number of demented elderly and their need for care will increase in the future. The progression of the dementia disease leads to gradual loss of ability to communicate and perform primary tasks of daily life. As this dependency could have an impac...
The number of demented elderly and their need for care will increase in the future. The progression of the dementia disease leads to gradual loss of ability to communicate and perform primary tasks of daily life. As this dependency could have an impact on the elderly own sense of value and dignity, the nurses behavior during care procedures is of great concern. Although caring is central essence to nursing, the process and meaning of caring still remain poorly illuminated in nursing practice. So the purpose of this research was to generate a theory that accounted for a pattern of professional caring process and problem nurses involved
Data were collected with in-depth interviews and participant observations until they were saturated. The participants consisted of 13 nurses who had experience of at least one year of caring for the demented elderly from 3 different facilities. Participants singed consent forms that clearly described the study process. The approach reported here used the constant comparative method based on Strauss and Corbin method(1998), data collection and analysis were done simultaneously. The data were analyzed into concepts, subcategories, and categories with the open coding procedure, the axial coding was done to identify the relationships of the concepts and categories, the coding for process was to look at action/interaction and trace it with time, and selective coding was done to discovery a core category and to integrate and refine the theory.
With the data analysis, 84 concepts, 38 subcategories and 20 categories were generated and a paradigm model was proposed as follows. The causal conditions were ill-matched the dementeds behaviors to the appropriate age, associated them with their own parents, and apprehended about future appearance of participants. The central phenomenon was compassion for the demented. The compassion was a central thoughts that was the most significant to participants. The contextual conditions that affected compassion were expansion of consciousness and maturity. The intervening conditions were professional identity and support of nursing environment. The action/interaction, which are strategic or routine responses of the participants, were taking responsibility, avoiding, enduring, considering, close contacting, self-facing, and self-fulfillment. According to consequences, those who discovered meaning of caring made an effort to offer homelike caregiving and to give personal caring as well as expand self-reflection. However those who didnt discover had conflict or relinquishment.
Nurses caring process for the demented elderly went through five stages with time : glancing, approaching, confronting, heart sharing, harmonized.
In the glancing stage, participants separated from the demented such as helper vs helpee, the young vs the old, and in the approaching stage, participants drew near to the demented through frequent routine procedures. In this continuous contact, participants have discovered emotional expressive ability of the demented regardless of disease level. So the confronting stage was named. In the heart sharing stage, participants found that real caring arose from deep down in the heart. Finally, in the harmonized stage, participants joined together the demented in daily life.
The generation of theory occurs around a core category. The core category of this study was the "embracement with tolerance". The "embracement with tolerance" comprised two related components. The first was the heightened awareness, which is nurses understanding or knowledge of the demented. The second component was heart felt caring, which is nurses attitude arisen from the bottom of the heart. Thus the "embracement with tolerance" reflects nurses understanding and attitude of the demented elderlys unique behaviors and feelings
From the relationships among the core category and the other categories, hypothetical statements were generated, thus four types were derived as follows : In the honoring type, participants tried to support and facilitate the homelike feeling for the demented. In the affectionate type, participants treated each individual as a unique person and provided individualized care. In the conflict type, participants were willing to change hospital if better condition is allowed. Finally, in the indifferent type, participants failed to find meaning in caring and didnt perceive psychosocial support as an important component of good nursing care.
In conclusion, the finding of this study found that participants connected their emotion, thinking and understanding to behavior through the embracement with tolerance. Thus the“embracement with tolerance" could explain central problem and behavior pattern of professional caring process. This finding is suggested that nonverbal communication is better than verbal communication when participants interact with the demented. As a profession, nursing must continue to explore the caring meaning and process toward the demented. Therefore additional research on professional caring process in different contexts can contribute to a better explanation of the demented elderlys caring.