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Lived Person-Centred Care in Long Term Care (LTC): Tensions Between Concept and Reality [A061] Passed

Wednesday May 6, 2026 09:00 - 11:15 Poster Arena

Presenter: Rhoda Moramba

Track: Poster session, Healthcare Governance

Background: Health care organizations are urged to treat service-users as persons who should be involved in co-creating their care, considering their unique perspectives and preferences. A person-centred care approach, which views service-users as persons, partnering and co-creating care with healthcare professionals, is deemed the gold standard of “good” care within healthcare organizations. However, health care organizations, especially nursing homes (NH), face challenges approaching care organization and delivery in this manner, partly due to the diversity of staff and residents. Aim: In our project ‘Caring about Diversities,’ we aimed to explore nursing home care practices regarding diversity-sensitive care, which we refer to as “good care.” Methods: We conducted a qualitative ethnographic study involving nursing staff and residents at a Swiss NH. We achieved 520 hours of fieldwork, producing fieldnotes as data. Data were analyzed using Grounded Theory procedures. Constant comparison and iterative coding were employed to conceptualize types of care practices emerging from interactions between nursing staff, residents. Findings: We generated a substantive theory of basic social processes through which nursing staff work with and achieve “good care” for NH residents. We called it “Crafting Practices”. Practicing PCC in nursing home settings with diverse staff and residents is complex, subject to different interpretations, diversities, staff training levels and relationships with residents. Nursing staff demonstrate their creative capacity to produce care that is (or is not) person-centred, hence, PCC is relational and is co-created in the frame of everyday routines, interactions and embodied practices. Conclusion: Nursing staff’s micro-level practices, governance and system factors intersect to produce or hinder PCC, which we refer to as “good care”. A novel “crafting practices” phenomenon characterises a complex process through which nurses engage strategies, competences and creativity to ensure “good care” for residents. Keywords: Person-Centred Care, Person-Centred Practices, Long Term Care, Nursing Home, Diversity-Sensitive Care.

Language

English

Conference

GCPCC

GCPCC Code

PCC141

Lecturers

Profile image for Rhoda Moramba

Rhoda Moramba Presenter

PhD Student
University of Applied Sciences Bern

I am a Nurse Scientist with many years of work in international humanitarian health organizations overseas, in hospitals and at a university in Switzerland. I am now in my final year in my PhD in Switzerland, researching staff competencies related to diversity-sensitive care in Swiss nursing homes. This project was funded by SNSF.