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Aims and Objectives: To identify the most common serious adverse events that occurred in nursing homes and their most frequent contributing factors to the improvement of safe nursing care., Background: There is a need to improve safe nursing care in nursing homes. Residents are often frail and vulnerable with extensive needs for nursing care. A relatively minor adverse event in nursing care can cause serious injury that could have been preventable., Design: This was a retrospective study, with a total sample of data regarding adverse events (n = 173) in nursing homes, concerning nursing care reported by healthcare providers in Sweden to the Health and Social Care Inspectorate. The reports were analysed with content analysis, and the frequencies of the adverse events, and their contributing factors, were described with descriptive statistics., Results: Medication errors, falls, delayed or inappropriate intervention and missed nursing care contributed to the vast majority (89%) of the serious adverse events. A total of 693 possible contributing factors were identified. The most common contributing factors were (i) lack of competence, (ii) incomplete or lack of documentation, (iii) teamwork failure and (iv) inadequate communication., Conclusions: The contributing factors frequently interacted yet they varied between different groups of serious adverse events. The resident's safety depends on the availability of staff's competence as well as adequate documentation about the resident's condition. Lack of competence was underestimated by healthcare providers., Relevance to Clinical Practice: Registered nurses and assistant nurses need to have awareness of contributing factors to adverse events in nursing care. A holistic approach to improve patient safety in nursing homes requires competence of the staff, safe environments as well as resident's and relative's participation., (© 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Aim: The aim of the study was to deepen the understanding of how older persons living in a nursing home experience life close to death., Background: A move to and a life in a nursing home while being close to death is a reality for many older people in Sweden. Being able to express thoughts and feelings about death has been described as both crucial for sustaining personhood as well as for establishing a meaningful existence at the end of life. Important are the experiences of older people living in nursing homes who are approaching death., Method: Six older people were interviewed on one to four occasions. A total of 16 interviews were conducted with the participants. An interpretative approach was chosen., Findings: The main interpretation, Feeling lonely in an unfamiliar place, is based on three themes (i) Waiting for death, with the subthemes death as a release and thinking of oneself as dead; (ii) Subordinate oneself to values and norms of the staff, with the subthemes feeling offended and feeling trapped; and (iii) Keep the courage up. The older people's lives were characterised by feelings of aloneness in an unfamiliar place which contributed to a sense of existential loneliness. They experienced few opportunities to discuss their thoughts of life and death, including preparations for passing away., Conclusion and Implication for Practice: It is of importance for professionals to be able to meet older people as they are and respect them as human beings in their transitions, before, during and after the move to a nursing home. It is important to find ways to support older people's wellbeing and identity near death., (© 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Living with dementia disease (DD) can include difficulties describing experiences of everyday lives, which can lead to withdrawal, social isolation or existential homelessness. Persons with DD living in nursing homes are mainly dependent on the nurses for establishing and maintaining relationships with those around them. It can be challenging for nurses to understand what a person with DD is trying to express and to make themselves understood in turn. The validation method is intended to facilitate communication with persons with DD, but to our knowledge, there have been no qualitative studies of how this influences persons' communication. This study aimed to illuminate the actions and reactions of persons with DD living in nursing homes in one-to-one conversations with nurses during 1 year of validation method training, as observed in videotapes. Four persons with DD were involved in videotaped conversations with four nurses who were participating in a validation method training programme. Videotapes with at least 5 months between the first and last recording were analysed and compared qualitatively. The findings are presented in four categories that were identified to various degrees in conversations at the beginning and at the end of the programme: being uninterested in or unable to answer questions, talking about more than one topic of conversation at the same time, trying to talk about what is on one's mind and speaking more freely about what is on one's mind. In the videotaped conversations at the end of the programme, the persons had the opportunity to use their remaining communication abilities. This may have been related to the development of the nurses' communication skills during the training programme, and so it is possible that persons with DD could benefit from communicating with nurses trained in the validation method., (© 2015 Nordic College of Caring Science.)

Aim: To reveal nursing home employees' views on dying and death among older people they cared for., Background: Palliative care stakeholders recently included more groups in their definition of palliative care; older people constitute one such group. Consequently, palliative care systems, which will serve a large, aging cohort, will require new skills. The first stage in skills acquisition is to gather current views on dying and death., Design: Qualitative descriptive study that uses focus group discussions for data collection; 20 employees in 4 Swedish nursing homes participated., Method: Data were analysed using qualitative content analysis., Results: The following categories were conceptualised: alleviating suffering and pain; finding meaning in everyday life; revealing thoughts and attitudes about death; taking care of the dead person's body; and coping with the gap between personal ideals and reality., Conclusions: A deeper understanding of the palliative care philosophy is needed to further develop and tailor care for the dying persons in nursing homes., Relevance to Clinical Practice: To get public support for palliative care, the silence surrounding dying and death must be broken. Employees must receive education to prepare for all aspects of their work, and management must account for employees' situation when planning the care., (© 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.)

Organizational changes are common in elder care today. Such changes affect caregivers, who are essential to providing good quality care. The aim of the present study was to illuminate caregivers' experiences of working in elder care while under threat of organizational change and termination notice. Qualitative content analysis was used to examine interview data from 11 caregivers. Interviews were conducted at three occasions during a two-year period. The findings show a transition in their experiences from 'having a professional identity and self-confidence', to 'being a professional in a threatening situation caused by someone else' and to 'struggling to adapt to a changed working environment as a person and a professional'. The caregivers experienced a loss of pride and satisfaction. Previous literature indicates that this may have consequences for the quality of care and that employees may be at risk of negative health effects. However, the caregivers continued to struggle, doing their best to complete their duties. The study has implications for high-level decision-makers, managers and caregivers in similar work-life situations in that it deals with factors that facilitate or impede similar transitions.