Reflection of COVID-19 pandemic process on the nursing home service model: The pandemic process experiences of seniors receiving service and employees

During the Covid-19 pandemic, special precautions have been taken in nursing homes which are one of the institutions that provide care services to the elderly, because the elderly are in the risk group and there is a risk of contamination due to the functioning of the institutions. The aim of this research is to reveal the experiences of the elderly who receive care services in nursing homes and the employees who serve the elderly during the pandemic process, to identify the changes in nursing home life caused by the measures and regulations taken to protect the elderly, and to examine the effects of these changes on the elderly and employees in the psycho-social dimension.In this research using a qualitative research model, 10 elderly people receiving care and 15 employees working at the Merzifon Nursing Home Directorate in Amasya were reached through purposeful sampling and interviews were conducted. The research revealed that there were changes in the functioning of nursing homes during the pandemic period, prohibitions such as curfews, visits and mass events were imposed on the elderly, and these changes affected the health, social, psychological and economic lives of the elderly. In addition, this research shows that the physical and mental health status and level of participation in social life are factors in the level of adaptation of the elderly to the pandemic rules ,the elderly experience feelings such as contamination anxiety, fear of death, stress, loneliness, helplessness, feeling worthless, social life is limited to nursing homes, the level of interaction with family and friends decreases, there is no change in their economic situation, but they experience problems such as shopping and performing banking transactions. Moreover, as a result of the research, it was determined that as a result of the change in the working order of nursing home employees during the pandemic period, the employees encountered problems such as workload, accommodation, staying away from the family environment, caring for family members, serving the diagnosed elderly, serving with protective equipment, and worrying about infecting family relatives and elderly people. Depending on the results obtained, suggestions have been presented to increase the psycho-social well-being of the elderly and employees receiving service from the nursing home service model during the pandemic and the quality of service in nursing homes.