"Vi kan inte göra mer än vad som står i pappret" - En kvalitativ studie kring undersköterskors syn på den psykiska hälsan bland äldre i hemvården

Sammanfattning: Authors: Jonna Nordkvist och Linnéa Lohr Title: "We can not do more than what is in the paper" - A study in home care on staff nurses' views on mental health among the elderly. Supervisor: Karin Kullberg Examiner: Anna Rypi The aim of this study was to examine how home care, based on staff nurses perspectives satisfy the needs of older people in relation to what is described in the legal text for elderly, for them to lead a life of dignity and well-being. The questions we wanted to answer were, how do the staff nurses talk about the elderly´s psychosocial well being; how do the nurses work with the elderly’s psychosocial well being and how do the nurses reason about the addition of a counsellor profession in the homecare team. This study shows that it´s common for elderly people to suffer from mental illness such as anxiety and depression. Statistics also indicate that the mental illness among older people is increasing while the population is getting older. Today’s home care consists of a mobile team who performs nursing interventions in the home of the old people. The professions in today’s homecare team are working with the physical and medical care of the elderly. We asked ourselves, is anyone working rehabilitative with emotions such as worry, anxiety and fear? If not, how can the criteria on providing the elderly dignity and a sense of well being be fulfilled such as the legal text of elderly provide for. By conducting this study we discovered that it seems important that the elderly can talk about their psychosocial well being together with someone, but existential and psychosocial issues tend to be neglected in today’s homecare. We understand that one reason for this is lack of expertise in the psychosocial field and uncertainty among the nurses about how they can and should address these situations. When a staff nurse comes in contact with elderly who are showing symptom of psychosocial illness we understand that the nurse is the one that is contacted for advice. This study shows that it´s common that the elderly gets medical treatment instead of being offered another psychosocial treatment. It is important that elderly have the opportunity to feel wellbeing, meaningfulness, dignity and security in agreement with the legal text. This study shows that the addition of a profession focused on the psychosocial field in the homecare team would mean that the elderly´s psychosocial well being have opportunity to be satisfied and as a result of that, the legal text could be fulfilled. Key words: Äldres psykiska hälsa, äldres behov, kurator i hemvården, livsmening hos äldre