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MA/PhD Theses Abstracts of Current Students & Alumni |
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Suiter, Rhonda E., April 1983 - AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL STUDY OF A LIFE CARE COMMUNITY
ABSTRACT: This thesis is concerned with the investigation of a specific problem at one life care community for the elderly in west central Florida. At this retirement community, middle level staff members at the on-site nursing home were concerned about a possible gulf or separation of their facility from the apartment portion of the community. Thus, the purpose of this research was to answer the following question: "Does a gulf exist between the on-site nursing home at this life care facility and the rest of the community?" A second question, contingent upon the first, was also addressed as follows: "Provided a gulf does exist, what are the parameters of that gulf?" In addition to background information on population trends in the United States, the migration of elderly, retired people to warmer regions like Florida, and problems that many elderly people face after retirement, the methodology was directed specifically toward answering the research question included the anthropological techniques of participant observation over a three month period, lengthy interviews with a number of key informants in the life care community, and less formal, shorter interviews with many community residents, patients, and staff. To supplement this information, a questionnaire was developed and distributed to community residents, and the results were analyzed via the Statistical Analysis System (SAS). Qualitative results suggested that many residents of the community interacted with the nursing home for a variety of reasons - to visit sick friends and relatives, to help out on a regular basis, and to assist with special nursing home events. Several formal residents' organizations and committees dealt with nursing home problems and activities. Life care community staff, with the exception of one position were completely separate between the nursing home and the apartment portions of the community. Quantitative analysis, limited out of necessity to the supposed resident - nursing home gulf, suggested that while interaction and attitudes were both present and positive, interaction (as reflected in attitudes to several Likert-type statements) was primarily on a surface level; on the whole, in-depth involvement between life-care community residents and the nursing home was absent. A gulf between the nursing home and the rest of the community was discovered. In addition, the parameters of that gulf existed not only between the residents of the community and the nursing home but included the nursing home and apartment community staff as well. Nursing home middle level staff members in their unique and marginal position at the community were able to visualize this gulf most clearly. Staff reorganization and education, coupled with the establishment of a transitional care unit, is recommended in order to eliminate the gulf at this life care community and improve the continuity of care so vital to living arrangements of this kind.
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