Encountering Existential Loneliness Among Older People: Perspectives of Health Care Professionals

Overview

Journal Int J Qual Stud Health Well-being

Specialties Health Services
Public Health

Date 2018 Jun 6

PMID 29869590

Citations 27

Authors

Malin Sundstrom

Anna-Karin Edberg

Margareta Ramgard

Kerstin Blomqvist

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Purpose: Existential loneliness is part of being human that is little understood in health care, but, to provide good care to their older patients, professionals need to be able to meet their existential concerns. The aim of this study was to explore health care professionals' experiences of their encounters with older people they perceive to experience existential loneliness.

Method: We conducted 11 focus groups with 61 health professionals working in home care, nursing home care, palliative care, primary care, hospital care, or pre-hospital care. Our deductive-inductive analytical approach used a theoretical framework based on the work of Emmy van Deurzen in the deductive phase and an interpretative approach in the inductive phase.

Results: The results show that professionals perceived existential loneliness to appear in various forms associated with barriers in their encounters, such as the older people's bodily limitations, demands and needs perceived as insatiable, personal shield of privacy, or fear and difficulty in encountering existential issues.

Conclusion: Encountering existential loneliness affected the professionals and their feelings in various ways, but they generally found the experience both challenging and meaningful.

Citing Articles

Nurses' perspectives on clinical competence to identify loneliness and depression in older people in home care: a qualitative study.

Hauger B, Martinsen R, Hestad K, Odbehr L BMC Health Serv Res. 2025; 25(1):370.

PMID: 40075364 PMC: 11905625. DOI: 10.1186/s12913-025-12428-y.

Challenges for staff encountering older people's existential concerns: Swedish first-line managers' views. A cross-sectional study.

Sundstrom M, Blomqvist K, Ramgard M, Edberg A Scand J Caring Sci. 2024; 39(1):e13300.

PMID: 39564737 PMC: 11686042. DOI: 10.1111/scs.13300.

Older persons making a life closure: experiences of loneliness in an academic nursing home - a phenomenological qualitative interview study.

Soderman A, Arvidsson-Lindvall M Int J Qual Stud Health Well-being. 2024; 19(1):2398201.

PMID: 39217523 PMC: 11382699. DOI: 10.1080/17482631.2024.2398201.

Older people's experience and related factors while receiving home-based long-term care services: a qualitative study.

Norvilaite A, Newland J, Blazeviciene A BMC Nurs. 2024; 23(1):580.

PMID: 39169322 PMC: 11340139. DOI: 10.1186/s12912-024-02234-y.

Social Contact and Belonging Among Older People Receiving Home Care Nursing.

Tomstad S, Sundsli K, Saevareid H, Soderhamn U J Multidiscip Healthc. 2024; 17:1189-1198.

PMID: 38505653 PMC: 10950076. DOI: 10.2147/JMDH.S452081.

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