Excellent care for people with dementia. Reconstruction of practice and habitus in nursing homes

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Hermann Brandenburg
• Subject Area: Empirical Social Research
• Term: from 2016 to 2019
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 316201566

According to the Charter of Rights for People in Need of Long Term Care and Assistance, published in 2005 by the two German Federal Ministries for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth (BMFSFJ) and for Health (BMG), people with dementia are entitled to support of claiming their basic rights of self-determination (Art. 1) and of social participation (Art. 6). For realizing this claim a nursing practice is needed that respects people with dementia as persons. In the end of the 20th century Tom Kitwood has developed the concept of Person-Centered-Care (PCC), which is regarded as the best way to achieve this aim. But recent studies show that PCC-oriented nursing practice for people with dementia in long-term care institutions can hardly be maintained. Even nurses who have been educated in PCC tend to relapse into depersonalizing patterns of interaction and communication after a short while. This observation gives rise to the question, which kinds of factors, namely primarily socializing factors, professionally socializing factors and/or factors of context, hinder or support the professional habitualization of PCC-nursing practice resp. a culture change in nursing. This question shall be examined in this research project by using instruments of qualitative empirical social research following the Documentary method after Bohnsack in two nursing homes specialized in caring for people with dementia.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants