Placing a relative into a nursing home : family members' experiences after the move : a review of the literature

This paper reports on existing literature on family members' experiences after placing their aged relative in a nursing home. The literature reports that family members commonly experience feelings of guilt, failure and concern for their older relative's well being after they have been placed in a nursing home. In addition, factors such as dealing with guilt, coping with loneliness, loss of identity, role ambiguity and worry for well being of the aged person and generic institutional care result in post placement carer stress. Very little support or counselling is provided to family members during and after placement in a nursing home. Despite a growing body of research that examines post placement stress for family members, there are not many support strategies or interventions to help family members cope with this stressful situation.