Experiences of Communication and Working During the Covid-19 Pandemic Among Nursing Home Staff: A Qualitative Interview Study.
Elisabet Eriksson, Katarina Hjelm
PMID 40123096WHAT IT FOUND
Nursing home staff said PPE and limited Swedish made communication with residents, relatives and colleagues difficult, especially when hearing or dementia was involved.
They used gestures, pictures, demonstration, repetition and relatives to bridge gaps.
Key findings
01PPE made communication with nursing home residents very difficult: residents could not hear staff, read lips or see facial gestures, and staff had to speak loudly or remove masks.
02Colleagues with limited Swedish led to misunderstandings about tasks such as showering, food allergies, temperature taking, clothing, documentation and phone calls, and sometimes staff had to involve the nurse in charge.
03Staff bridged language gaps with pictures, gestures, repetition, clear wording, follow-up questions, demonstration, word lists, relatives as translators and bilingual staff, while translation apps were often not useful for residents with dementia.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The sample was 17 staff from publicly and privately owned Swedish nursing homes, mostly associate nurses, with one male participant, so it may not represent all professions, workplaces or countries. Participants were staff, not residents or relatives, so the findings are staff perceptions rather than direct patient experiences. Twenty-three first-line managers declined, and staff volunteered, so homes with different communication problems may be missing. Interviews were by phone or video, and some words were difficult to hear. The study was qualitative and did not test whether any strategy improved communication, safety or wellbeing.
Declared interests
Funded by Stiftelsen Ragnhild och Einar Lundströms Minne; authors declare no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read these strategies as evidence that they improve resident communication, safety or wellbeing. The study reports perceptions from 17 nursing home staff in one Swedish county and did not measure patient outcomes.