“Some May Never Stop Drinking and Using, but One Becomes a Person" – a Triangulated Homecare for Older Adults Ageing with Harmful Substance Use and Complex Needs.
Study aim: To analyze homecare staff and care recipients’ understanding of specialized homecare. What characterize specialized homecare and how does it differ from ordinary homecare? What are the potentials and drawbacks with such arrangements?
Methods: The study design has a qualitative approach with an ethnographic design. The empirical material was collected through qualitative semi-structured interviews individually and in small groups of two informants. Data consist of interviews with fourteen staff members from three specialized homecare teams in municipalities in the southern, middle, and northern region of Sweden. Further, five care recipients were interviewed individually. All interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim and coded in NVivo.
Results: Following three overarching themes was found in this study: Flexibility, Commitment, and Relational trust.
Discussion: Results from this study shows that harm reduction approaches is used in specialized homecare which has a tremendous influence on building relations and trust between care recipients and staff. According to the results, it is highly important that staff has temporal flexibility and continuity incorporated into their efforts, work with individually tailored interventions, are committed and have the desire to work with this target group because results indicate that it enhances the lives of care recipients in a positive way. The results further suggest that specialized homecare has the potential to contribute to reduced harmful substance use among care recipients and reduce the strain on societal resources as well as help to provide financial gains for society.