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Home Care Workers' Experiences of Client Death and Disenfranchised Grief
- Source :
- Qualitative health research. 29(3)
- Publication Year :
- 2018
-
Abstract
- While many types of health care workers experience patient death, home care workers do so under vastly different social and economic circumstances. When a client dies, home care workers often lose both a close relationship and a job. Though research suggests that health care workers’ grief may frequently be disenfranchised, there is no in-depth study of the mechanisms that disenfranchise home care workers’ grief specifically. To address this gap, our study used focus groups and peer interviews between home care workers in New York City. We describe four interrelated grief strategies they employ to navigate social and employer-based “grieving rules.” Our findings suggest that home care workers’ grief is disenfranchised via employer and societal underestimations of their relationships with clients and their losses when clients die, particularly job loss. Building on our findings, we suggest alterations to agency practices and home care systems to improve support for workers.
- Subjects :
- Adult
media_common.quotation_subject
Health Personnel
Disenfranchised Grief
Interviews as Topic
03 medical and health sciences
0302 clinical medicine
Nursing
Health care
Agency (sociology)
Adaptation, Psychological
Humans
030212 general & internal medicine
Qualitative Research
media_common
030504 nursing
business.industry
Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health
Disenfranchised grief
Social Support
Middle Aged
Focus group
Home Care Services
Death
Care workers
Close relationship
Unemployment
Grief
Female
New York City
0305 other medical science
Job loss
business
Psychology
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 10497323
- Volume :
- 29
- Issue :
- 3
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Qualitative health research
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....3682f0fb03cbad210f3c154ce353cff8