Being an adult child of an elderly person living in a nursing home: a phenomenological approach to the Turkish case

Purpose A long-established cultural norm of filial piety may cause ambivalent feelings for adult children who are considered the primary caregivers for their elderly parents in Turkish culture, and whose parents have been placed into nursing homes. The purpose of this paper is to provide an insight to the lived experiences of adult children of elderly people living in a nursing home in Turkey. Design/methodology/approach Drawing upon dramaturgical theory and phenomenological methodology, the authors conducted interviews with ten adult children whose elderly parents had been admitted to a nursing home in Izmir, Turkey. Multi-stage purposeful random sampling was used as the sampling scheme. Thematic analysis was performed to interpret the data. Findings Three themes emerged from the data: adult children’s coping strategies, the ways in which the adult children rationalize their decisions, and the ways in which the adult children manage the placement process. The interviews revealed that the adult children often feel like social outcasts and experience a wide range of difficulties, including social pressures, their own inner dilemmas, and negotiations with their elderly parents. Originality/value An exploration for the lived experiences of adult children relating to the nursing home placement of their elderly parents contributes an insight about the well-established cultural norms that produce feelings of ambivalence.