The metaphor of incarceration is accentuated by locked doors, and the historical metaphor of the poor house is accentuated by the wide variety of physical and mental disabilities of the residents, most of them poor and the rest without easy access to their resources, who are crammed into close quarters. They tend to accept the litany of problems in nursing home life as a given: hospital-like physical settings, rigid routines for daily life, general lack of privacy, lowest-common denominator programming, and perennial evidence that staff are too few and too poorly trained to meet the residents' physical needs, let alone their higher-order needs that affect their perceived QOL. Why QOL in Nursing Homes is a Low Priorityįirst, those who believe that nursing home QOL ranges from bad to unspeakably abysmal rarely focus on improving it. Arguably, QOL will receive sustained attention only with a multipronged approach that includes both methodological development and an action agenda.
Corrilates every daylife professional#
Quality of life, Quality of care, Measures, Indicators, Direct interviews, Nursing home residents, Coginitive impairmentĭespite widespread beliefs among lay and professional people alike that life in nursing homes is miserable, quality of life (QOL) hardly makes it to the political and policy radar screen. A research agenda is needed, which includes both methodological research and studies of the correlates of quality of life. Implications:Although residents' perceived quality of life is partly a product of their health, social supports, and personalities, nursing homes can directly influence quality of life through their polices, practices, and environments, and, indirectly, through their approaches to family and community. Five challenges in measuring quality of life were identified: (a) designing questions with appropriate response categories and time frames, (b) developing a sampling strategy, (c) aggregating information at the individual and facility level, (d) validating what are ultimately subjective constructs, and (e) developing an approach using observations and proxies to assess quality of life for approximately the 40% of the residents who will be impossible to interview. The research argues that the resident voice must be sought in reaching operational definitions for quality of life and as reporters on the quality of their own lives, and that resident burden is a spurious concern that should not deter direct interviews with residents. Results:Measuring quality of life is a relatively low priority in nursing homes because of focus on markers of poor quality of care, pervasive sense that nursing homes are powerless to influence quality of life, and impatience with research among those dedicated to culture change. Design and Method:A theoretical analysis was conducted based on literature and the author's own large-scale studies of quality of life of nursing home residents. Purpose:This article identifies challenges in defining, measuring, and studying quality of life of nursing home residents.
0 kommentar(er)
