HEALTH CARE STAFF’S PERCEPTION OF EXISTENTIAL LONELINESS AMONG OLDER PEOPLE

Loneliness and thoughts about existential aspects are common among older people and unmet needs to share their thoughts can lead to existential loneliness. Knowledge about how health care staff perceive existential loneliness in older people and what they do to meet their needs is scarce. The aim of the study was thus to explore health care staff’s perception of older persons’ existential loneliness. Ten focus group interviews were performed with staff (n=55) representing different professions, such as nursing aids, nurses, physicians, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, social counselors and social workers. Different care contexts were included to reach variation; home care, nursing homes, palliative care, primary care, hospital care and prehospital care. Data was analyzed using a qualitative content analysis. The results show that existential loneliness appears in various forms depending on the older person, their life experiences and the situation at hand and seems to be connected to issues about time and place. Staff perceived that existential loneliness emerged when physical disabilities became barriers, when they felt excluded by people in their vicinity or when they themselves excluded others from their life-world. Existential loneliness also emerged when they felt alienation, guilt or regret for situations in the past. Preparedness among staff to identify and deal with existential loneliness varied while the care environment seems to hinder or support their possibility to discover and encounter existential loneliness.