Behind the Mask: Recognising the Person in Relatives of Nursing Home Residents-A Qualitative Meta-Synthesis.
Rouven Brenner, Theresa Clement, Julian Hirt and 2 others
PMID 42432861WHAT IT FOUND
Relatives of nursing home residents move between conflicting emotions like gratitude and guilt, and shift between roles such as advocate and observer, rather than occupying fixed positions.
Their experience is a continuous negotiation of identity within institutional constraints.
Key findings
01Relatives experience persistent emotional ambivalence, holding conflicting feelings such as gratitude for care alongside suspicion or guilt about their own involvement.
02Roles are fluid and overlapping; relatives move between being advocates, observers, and mediators in response to staff receptiveness and resident needs.
03Relationship quality with staff directly influences how much responsibility relatives take on, with positive recognition enabling involvement and exclusion leading to withdrawal.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The authors did not conduct a formal quality assessment of the included studies, prioritising conceptual breadth over methodological hierarchy. The synthesis excluded studies focused on exceptional situations like end-of-life care or pandemics, limiting applicability to those contexts. The included studies were published in English or German, which may limit cross-cultural generalisability.
Declared interests
The University of Vienna provided open-access funding. The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not interpret the cyclical model as a tested intervention or a validated assessment tool. The study synthesises existing qualitative descriptions to propose a conceptual framework; it does not demonstrate that applying this model improves patient outcomes or staff satisfaction.