Terapidjur på äldreboenden : En kvalitativ studie om upplevelser och erfarenheter om implementering

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate the experience and knowledge from the implementation of animal-assisted therapy as a health-promoting method in nursing homes. This study used a qualitative method with an inductive approach. To collect data, four semi-structured interviews were conducted. The respondents of this study were selected by a meaningful sampling method. The inclusion criteria were that the nursing homes currently used or had used therapeutic animals. The collected data was analyzed with a content analysis. The results were presented in continues text with quotes from the respondents to validate the findings. The main findings of the study displayed that the reasoning behind the respondent’s willingness to implement animal-assisted therapy in nursing homes was that they had previous positive experience with the effects of therapeutic animals. The respondents highlighted that they experienced that the implementation of therapeutic animals was met with few difficulties.  The conclusion of the study was that nursing homes were dependent on receiving therapeutic animals in form of donations to implement them. Lack of funding may be an underlying factor why therapeutic animals have not been implemented to a greater extent in other nursing homes, despite the health-promoting effects previous studies show.