JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Research on eldercare has been dominated by a provider-oriented perspective, concerned with the conditions and views of care providers. There are striking differences compared to the field of disability studies, where help is framed as part of a larger project of having a daily life and being included in society. Pilot interviews indicate that older people develop active strategies to make care work. These include practical preparations, emotional activities such as showing an interest in staff members’ lives or rhetorical skills in asking for help.

Objective:

The aim of this project is to develop empirical and theoretical knowledge of eldercare as a relational practice, accomplished by older people in their daily lives. This perspective will also offer an alternative to ongoing attempts to reduce the user perspective to an issue about older people acting as customers on a market.

Methods:

The project has an ethnographic two-year longitudinal approach. Data consists of interviews and participant observations with 35 persons (home care users and co-habituating partners) and diary study with additional 10 care users.

Results:

As of submission of this protocol (August 2022), 20 interviews with home care users have been conducted. Data collection with follow-up interviews and observations, analysis and reporting of findings will be finished by April 2025.

Conclusions:

By studying care use in the context of older people’s lives the project will add important knowledge about the strategies and adjustments older people apply to make care arrangements work. A user-oriented perspective will further the understanding of how power relations play out in home care over time, in relation to the formal rights, categorical belongings, and established norm systems that place the user in superior or subordinate positions. Clinical Trial: Non applicable