TY - JOUR
T1 - Good Care during COVID-19
T2 - A Narrative Approach to Care Home Staff’s Experiences of the Pandemic
AU - Dohmen, Marleen D. W.
AU - van den Eijnde, Charlotte
AU - Thielman, Christina L. E.
AU - Lindenberg, Jolanda
AU - Huijg, Johanna M.
AU - Abma, Tineke A.
N1 - Funding Information:
Funding: This study was funded by the Dutch Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport under number 329327. The funding source was not involved in writing this manuscript nor in the decision to submit for publication.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
PY - 2022/2/1
Y1 - 2022/2/1
N2 - Due to its major impact on Dutch care homes for older people, the COVID-19 pandemic has presented care staff with unprecedented challenges. Studies investigating the experiences of care staff during the COVID-19 pandemic have shown its negative impact on their wellbeing. We aimed to supplement this knowledge by taking a narrative approach. We drew upon 424 personal narratives written by care staff during their work in a Dutch care home during the COVID-19 pandemic. Firstly, our results show that care staff have a relational-moral approach to good care. Residents’ wellbeing is their main focus, which they try to achieve through personal relationships within the triad of care staff–resident–significant others (SOs). Secondly, our results indicate that caregivers experience the COVID-19 mitigation measures as obstructions to relational-moral good care, as they limit residents’ wellbeing, damage the triadic care staff–residents–SOs relationship and leave no room for dialogue about good care. Thirdly, the results show that care staff experiences internal conflict when enforcing the mitigation measures, as the measures contrast with their relational-moral approach to care. We conclude that decisions about mitigation measures should be the result of a dialogic process on multiple levels so that a desired balance between practical good care and relational-moral good care can be determined.
AB - Due to its major impact on Dutch care homes for older people, the COVID-19 pandemic has presented care staff with unprecedented challenges. Studies investigating the experiences of care staff during the COVID-19 pandemic have shown its negative impact on their wellbeing. We aimed to supplement this knowledge by taking a narrative approach. We drew upon 424 personal narratives written by care staff during their work in a Dutch care home during the COVID-19 pandemic. Firstly, our results show that care staff have a relational-moral approach to good care. Residents’ wellbeing is their main focus, which they try to achieve through personal relationships within the triad of care staff–resident–significant others (SOs). Secondly, our results indicate that caregivers experience the COVID-19 mitigation measures as obstructions to relational-moral good care, as they limit residents’ wellbeing, damage the triadic care staff–residents–SOs relationship and leave no room for dialogue about good care. Thirdly, the results show that care staff experiences internal conflict when enforcing the mitigation measures, as the measures contrast with their relational-moral approach to care. We conclude that decisions about mitigation measures should be the result of a dialogic process on multiple levels so that a desired balance between practical good care and relational-moral good care can be determined.
KW - COVID-19
KW - Care ethics
KW - Care homes
KW - Mitigation measures
KW - Narratives
KW - Relational care
KW - Wellbeing
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85124459430&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3390/ijerph19042106
DO - 10.3390/ijerph19042106
M3 - Article
C2 - 35206293
SN - 1660-4601
VL - 19
JO - International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
JF - International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
IS - 4
M1 - 2106
ER -