This study has explored the culture of nursing home life as experienced by elderly nursing home residents in Taiwan in order to understand, describe and interpret their care needs. In December 2006, the elderly represented 10% of the total population of Taiwan, and this proportion is predicted to increase steadily. In turn, this increase suggested that Taiwan would see ever greater numbers of elderly people with chronic illnesses and physical and mental disabilities. To care for these people, nursing homes have expanded rapidly throughout Taiwan. However, the quality of care provided in these nursing homes has become an urgent matter of concern. Though meeting the residents' care needs is essential for the provision of the best quality care, a review of the available literature shows that the care needs of the elderly residents within the nursing home context are poorly understood, both in Taiwan and internationally. To address this gap in present understanding, a focused ethnographic approach, using participant observation, in-depth interviews and a review of documents, was undertaken between July 2005 and February 2006. The key participants were sixteen elderly residents who were 65 years old and over, had no cognitive impairment and had lived in the nursing home selected for the present study for at least six months. Eight nurses, six nursing assistants, one private nursing assistant, one orderly, one physician's assistant and four family members were also interviewed, with questions put to them being based on the data generated from the observation and in-depth interviews with the elderly residents. All interviews were recorded on a digital recorder and transcribed verbatim. Following this, the data gathered from the in-depth interviews, the participant observation and the review of documents was sorted and indexed using the qualitative software program, NVivo7. A five-step analytic process, based on concepts discussed in previous literature, was used to trace the emerging themes. Nine major care needs were identified by the elderly residents. These included basic functional care needs, emotional support care needs, economic care needs, psychological care needs, environmental care needs, social support care needs, professional care needs, religious care needs and preparation for death care needs. Three themes of nursing home culture were generated; these were collective life, care rituals and embedded beliefs. The findings of the study indicate that the structure and culture of the nursing home contribute to several care needs remaining unmet. In addition, the results reveal that it is necessary to satisfy economic care needs before other care needs can be resolved. These findings fill an important gap in nursing knowledge regarding the delivery of better quality care in nursing homes. They also provide relevant information to nursing practice, nursing education and Taiwanese long-term care policy-making, and provide a sound basis for future residential care research.

Made available in DSpace on 2015-05-14T12:23:06Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Arquivototal.pdf: 2696227 bytes, checksum: 90e1ec5be6970abd4074c45522bfdc88 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-03-26 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / This work is linked to the research of Teaching History and Historical understanding of the Graduate Program in History from the Federal University of Paraíba - UFPB, with a major in History and Historical Culture, it aims is to analyze the memory accounts of the elderly residents of the neighborhood Jaguaribe in order to understand from them, the changes occurring in this space that comprises the city of João Pessoa. In other words, we intend to study the memory of the elderly residents of Jaguaribe to elucidate how these observed changes and continuities that space over time. In this regard, we chose the memory of the elderly about Jaguaribe as a reference for this work by the fact that the neighborhood can be characterized as an important place of daily life, marked by the subjectivity of those who reside or resided there, the affection that these subjects are develop over the place, which leads us to propose questions such as: the extent to which these affective relations interfere in the record that these people work out of this place in your memory? Thus, the perspective of memory can be considered as one of the factors that contribute to studies and research related to neighborhoods, particularly from the testimony of the elders. Through the stories of these residents can reveal many details of the history and culture of a historic neighborhood, especially when it is based on this analysis aspects that relate to everyday life in the present or the past, beyond those that are linked to changes that levels are established in the social, cultural, economic and structural place over time. / O presente trabalho, vinculado à linha de pesquisa Ensino de História e Saberes Históricos do Programa de Pós-Graduação em História da Universidade Federal da Paraíba UFPB, com área de concentração em História e Cultura Histórica, tem por objetivo analisar os relatos de memória dos moradores idosos do bairro de Jaguaribe no sentido de compreender, a partir deles, as transformações ocorridas nesse espaço que compõe a cidade de João Pessoa. Em outras palavras, pretende-se estudar a memória dos moradores idosos da localidade visando elucidar como os mesmos observaram as mudanças e permanências desse espaço no decorrer do tempo. Nesse sentido, escolhemos a memória dos idosos acerca de Jaguaribe como referencial para este trabalho pelo fato de que o bairro pode ser caracterizado como o lugar por excelência da vivência cotidiana, marcado pela subjetividade daqueles que nele residem ou residiram, pela afetividade que esses sujeitos passam a desenvolver em relação ao local, o que nos leva a propor questionamentos do tipo: em que medida essas relações afetivas interferem no registro que esses sujeitos elaboram a respeito desse lugar em sua memória? Dessa forma, a perspectiva da memória pode ser considerada como um dos fatores que contribuem para os estudos e pesquisas relacionados aos bairros, sobretudo a partir dos depoimentos dos mais velhos que nos permitiram investigar, dentre outros elementos, as mudanças e permanências no espaço do bairro, as festas de rua de Jaguaribe e as relações sociais de trabalho, lazer e familiares pautadas numa perspectiva de gênero. Através dos relatos desses moradores é possível desvendar inúmeros elementos relativos à história e cultura histórica de um bairro, especialmente quando se toma por base para esta análise aspectos que dizem respeito ao cotidiano, no presente ou no passado, além daqueles que estão interligados às mudanças que são instituídas nos níveis social, cultural, econômico e estrutural do lugar no decorrer do tempo.