"I feel well even though I have illnesses" : Elderly people’s thoughts on everyday life - a pilot study.

Abstract

Introduction With continuously changing demographics, Sweden will in the future have an increased amount of people over the age of 75 years still living in their own homes. The district nurses’ role involves care for the elderly outside of the hospitals, which is why there is a need for more research to be done on how to improve elderly peoples’ health and wellbeing. Many older people experience loneliness in their everyday life, a reason for decreased health and subjective wellbeing. Aim Our aim is to describe single-living community health needing elderly people’s thoughts on their everyday life and social relations. Method This study uses a qualitative approach through a life world perspective. This pilot study includes three interviews. The data was analyzed using qualitative content analysis. Result The result has three main categories; Everyday life, Social relations and Changes in life. The informants experienced loneliness on a daily basis and wished for more continuous relations with their family. Everyday life was marked by the changes in life they were going through which is a part of the ageing process. Discussion Elderly people go through a transition process and will hopefully achieve successful ageing. Our informants were in different phases of the process, which meant they would accept and adapt to the daily situation in their way. Social contacts made all the informants feel better, happier with life and improved their wellbeing. Changes in life i.e. the loss of a lifelong partner appeared to permeate all other aspects of their life. Knowledge from this study can provide an understanding of elderly people’s everyday life and criteria for wellbeing. This will give us insights on how to promote quality of life for this group of people.