Caregivers’ Difficulty in Empathizing with Nursing Home Residents: A Qualitative study

Abstract

This study examined the difficulty nursing home caregivers have in empathizing with their residents. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 16 caregivers (3 males, 13 females). Categories and concepts were derived using a modified grounded theory approach (Kinoshita, 2003). Data analysis revealed two main categories that related to the research question: time pressure (momentum of urgency, response to urgency, difficulty in empathizing) and conflict with residents (momentum of conflict, conflict avoidance efforts, „human versus human„ perception, abandon empathizing). Caregivers accept task schedule as absolute tended to devote less attention to residents under time pressure. „Human versus human„ perception occurred when caregivers accept the negative acts of resident as true.