Nursing Publications
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
12-1-2021
Journal
BMC Research Notes
Volume
14
Issue
1
URL with Digital Object Identifier
10.1186/s13104-021-05686-6
Abstract
Objective: The COVID-19 pandemic has brought about a major upheaval in the lives of older adults and their family/friend caregivers, including those utilizing home care services. In this article, we focus on results from a qualitative component added to a pragmatic randomized controlled trial that focuses on the experiences of our study participants during COVID-19. A total of 29 participants responded to the COVID-19 related questions focused on their health services experiences and preferences from March-June 2020 including 10 home care clients and 19 family/friend caregivers in the provinces of Ontario and Nova Scotia, Canada. Results: Many participants were affected drastically by the elimination or reduction of access to services, highlighting the vulnerability of home care clients and their caregivers during COVID-19. This took an emotional toll on home care clients and increased the need for family/friend caregiver support. While many participants expressed reduced desire to utilize residential long-term care homes, some caregivers found that passive remote monitoring technology was particularly useful within the COVID-19 context. Our results provide important insights into the ways the older adults and their caregivers have been affected during the COVID-19 context and how to better support them in the future.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Citation of this paper:
Weeks, L.E., Nesto, S., Hiebert, B. et al. Health service experiences and preferences of frail home care clients and their family and friend caregivers during the COVID-19 pandemic. BMC Res Notes 14, 271 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13104-021-05686-6
Notes