Negotiating internal and external boundaries of nursing homes during Covid-19: a case study from Norway (original) (raw)

2023, Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks

What happened was that they [the residents] could not receive visitors. For those who usually didn't get visitors, it wasn't a big deal. But it was significant especially for two residents, who were very close to their families. They had a lot of visitors. Almost every day. And now, all of a sudden, it's closed and they can't visit. And one of them didn't get it: why is it like this? It was difficult to explain. We saw that their general condition deteriorated, physically and mentally. One of them became bedridden, one wouldn't eat and was very down. At that point we had to put in measures so that families could visit. Then we experienced that the bedridden resident came out of their bed and the other resident's mood became better. (Registered nurse, nursing home, Norway) This is not a voluntary work [dugnad], it is our job! 1 (Focus-group interview of nursing staff, nursing home, Norway) Covid-19 has severely affected the physical and mental well-being of older adults, and nursing home (NH) residents most of all (Comas-Herrera et al., 2020). Declines in physical and mental health (Levere, Rowan, & Wysocki, 2021), increases in the use of medication (Campitelli et al., 2021), more social isolation (van Maurik et al., 2020), as well as increases in the number of deaths (Thompson et al., 2020) have accompanied Covid-19 in nursing homes. Recent research also indicates why Covid-19 was more severe in some NHs or in some jurisdictions, highlighting the specific characteristics of different facilities that influenced the degree of contagion. In particular, research finds NH size (larger NHs, more contagion), ownership (for-profit status, more contagion), degree of urbanization (larger communities, more contagion), singular/plural occupancies (plural occupancies, more contagion), stability of staff (less stable, more contagion), staff coverage (less staff, more contagion), NH age (older NHs, more contagion), and designated staff areas ("open spaces," more contagion), have all influenced the degree of contagion in NHs