How does Older People's Drinking Appear in the Daily Work of Home Care Professionals?

Abstract

in the Helsinki metropolitan area of Finland. Everyday situations during home visits related to the clients' alcohol use were analysed according to modalities of agency of the home care professionals. RESULTS -The results focus on three themes raised in the interviews: supporting life management of the client, the lack of qualifications in tackling clients' drinking and the need for multi-professional collaboration. Intoxicated clients complicated the home care nurses' work and obstructed the implementation of recommendations set out to guide the professionals' operations. Care work with alcohol-using clients was particularly demanding, and the professionals were concerned about not having enough training in how to encounter elderly clients' drinking. Multi-professional collaboration with substance abuse services and emergency department personnel was called for to remedy this problem. CONCLUSIONS -More extensive and detailed research is needed for a better picture of how clients' drinking influences home care nurses' working conditions and what kind of skills nurses need in different alcohol-related situations. Such research would have the potential to benefit clients and improve the well-being of the employees.

Change and continuity in Finnish drinking in the 21st century

“…While drinking habits among 65–69-year-olds no longer differ much from those among 50–64-year-olds, alcohol consumption among 80–84-year-olds is much less prevalent, and the consumed volumes are significantly smaller. However, as older people’s alcohol use has increased all along the line, different kinds of problems reported by home care nurses or close relatives have proliferated ( Koivula et al, 2016 ; Vilkko et al, 2013 ). Moreover, contrary to younger age groups in the 2010s, the number of fatal alcohol-related diseases has continued to increase among people over 60 years of age ( Tigerstedt et al, forthcoming ).…”

Alcohol’s harms to others: the self-rated health of those with a heavy drinker in their lives

“…19 Additionally, there have been renewed endeavours among the Nordic countries to investigate various aspects and implications of the AHTO perspective on alcohol-related problems. [20][21][22] Despite this growing research, no previous study has yet investigated the relationship between knowing a heavy drinker and one's SRH.…”

Elderly Well-Being and Alcohol: A Tricky Cocktail

“…A review of the extant literature shows that these questions have been only marginally addressed in prior research, confirming their importance. Recent Finnish and Swedish studies of care staff dealing with older adults' alcohol use (Karlsson & Gunnarson, 2017;Koivula et al, 2016) strongly emphasize the need for more in-depth research in the field. These studies closely confirm the reports we obtained from the municipality, which pointed to a lack of guidelines for the handling of alcohol, as well as a need for more training and knowledge among care professionals, who are often confronted with the dilemmas described above and experience themselves to be acting from emotions like disgust or pity.…”