The Values of Older People Living at Home and Family Caregivers that Impacts Bowel Elimination Care Provided by Visiting Nurses

Abstract

This study aimed to explore the values of older people living at home and family caregivers that impacts bowel elimination care provided by visiting nurses.
Semi-structured interviews were individually conducted with 14 visiting nurses who have 3 or more years of experience in home-visit nursing. The interview content covered the process of support given to older people living at home requiring care for bowel elimination (hereafter, older people) and the family caregivers. The support process for 22 cases of older people and family caregivers were described. An inductive, qualitative analysis was carried out on the acquired data.
As a result, eight categories were identified in the values of older people that impact bowel elimination care. They include “the importance of bowel elimination which becomes quite a problem if it doesn’t occur,” “the inability to ask for help even from family because the physiological phenomenon of bowel elimination is a private activity,” and “wanting the visiting nurse to control bowel elimination out of a desire not to jeopardize one’s own and the family’s lifestyles.” In addition, eight categories were identified in the values of family caregivers. They include “stool becoming packed in the bowels when bowel elimination doesn’t occur which becomes quite a problem,” “disliking helping with bowel elimination but being unable to refuse because of the relationship with the older person,” and “wanting to leave help with bowel elimination to the visiting nurse because it is especially burdensome.”
Given the above, this study indicated the importance of nursing support based on the considerable significance that bowel elimination has in the sense of contentment in the lives of older people, and the fact that decisions regarding bowel elimination are made on the basis of the relationship between older people and family caregivers.