Background
The promotion of health and economic status in all over
the world resulted in increasing the older population. It's
expected, at least 40% of the population over 75 years,
need extensive health care services in the last parts of their
lives. The rate of transferring the elderly to the nursing
home is increasing in Iran too. Understanding elder's
emotional experiences is important for living in nursing
home and understanding why this relocation causes that
elder views it as “final sign of failure” is important,
because this perceptions and fears have negative effects on
elder's adaptation in countering with this challenge. This
study aimed to describe emotional experiences of elders
living in nursing homes.
Materials and methods
The qualitative phenomenological approach and purposive
sampling amongst elderly residents in private and
governmental nursing homes in Esfahan city was applied.
Sampling continued till data saturation and resulting
sample size became 10 participants. The data was collected
with in-depth interviews and field notes. Colaizzi's
method was used for data analysis and the rigor was based
on transferability and credibility.
Results
Three themes were extracted from the data (structural
components of experience), including: 1- Residents' emotional
experiences in nursing home life 2- Resident's emotional
experiences at the entrance in nursing home. 3-
Feeling of powerlessness.
Conclusions
In this study, older people have shown various emotions
to relocation and residence in nursing homes. Every elder,
with different context and different history in life,
described its uniqueness experiences. In addition, pay
attention to social, financial, health supports and mental,
spiritual and physical needs of elders should be met
through whole care, because only attention to physical
needs of them, denies hopeful, meaningful and purposive
life in nursing homes
