How implementation of “Joy of Life” are experienced by the employees: A qualitative study

Abstract

Background: Nursing homes are under strong pressure to provide good care to the patients. In Norway, municipalities have applied the ‘Joy-of-Life-Nursing-Homes’ strategy to increase a health-promoting perception that focuses on the older persons` resources. Implementations represent introducing changes to the health professionals; however, changing one’s working approaches, routines and working culture may be demanding. On this background we explored how the ‘Joy-of-Life-Nursing-Homes’ strategy is perceived by the employees, before and after the implementation and which challenges the employees experience with this implementation.Method: We used a qualitative approach and interviewed 14 healthcare personnel working in nursing homes in one Norwegian municipality which had implemented the ‘Joy-of-Life-Nursing-Homes’ strategy. The analysis was conducted following Kvale’s approach to qualitative analysis.Results: The main categories after the data condensing were (a) the characteristics of care activities before implementations of ‘Joy-of-Life-Nursing-Homes’, (b) how ‘Joy-of-Life-Nursing-Homes’ influenced the care activities, and (c) challenges with the implementation of ‘Joy-of-Life-Nursing-Homes’. Some of the informants spoke well about the implementation concerning the quality of the care, as one stated “to see the joy in the eyes of the patient then I feel we have succeeded”. For informants who experienced resistance toward the implementation, they feel that it is too much to document, it is too complicated, and the requirements are too many. Conclusions: Quality of care for the patients seems to have increased after the implementation. Nevertheless, the fact that the informants seemed to be divided into two different groups related to their main perspective of the implementation is concerning. One group has positive experiences with the implementations process and the benefits of it, while the other group focuses on lack of benefits and problems with the implementation process.