Att bemöta psykisk ohälsa i äldreomsorg : En kvalitativ studie om ålderism bland undersköterskor.

Sammanfattning: To encounter mental illness within elderly care – A qualitative study on ageism amongst nurses. The essay aims to examine how nurses within Swedish nursing homes talk about mental illness amongst elderly; together with analysing the result, explaining how ageism expresses itself in the conversation and which impact ageism can have in the care of elderly. The study is qualitative and uses focus groups and vignettes to collect the empirical data. Two focus groups with three nurses in each group were interviewed, the results presented are therefore not generalizable over a bigger population. However, the results preferably intend to generate data for future studies. To analyse the result, ageism was used as a theoretical perspective together with previous studies. Ageism is a theory which explores discrimination based on age and mainly within the older population. The study finds that several of the interviewed nurses discuss elderly with mental illness in a discriminating way. Ageist expressions such as elderly being confused, worried and deviant were common amongst the interviewed nurses. Some findings show that the nurses attitudes seem to correlate with their care due to confusion between knowledge and prejudice. Further research is however needed to determine whether ageism is common within nursing homes or how ageism affects the care of elderly.