A joint effort to affect lives. The COPD Wellness Program

A concept analysis of dignity for older adults

BACKGROUND

Human dignity is an essential value of professional nursing education as well as a component of the American Nurses Association Code of Ethics. Nurses are exhorted to treat patients with dignity, and older adults want to be treated with dignity and die with dignity. Although dignity, particularly the dignity of older adults, is often discussed in the health care literature, its meaning is not always clear.

AIM

The aim of this paper is to describe a concept analysis to develop a definition of dignity in older adults.

METHODS

Data were collected using a literature review and five focus groups composed of older adults. The literature provided data about professionals' ideas of dignity and the focus groups provided qualitative data about the nature of dignity in older people. The literature review and focus groups were carried out concurrently, followed by synthesis of the findings.

FINDINGS

Dignity is an inherent characteristic of being human, it can be subjectively felt as an attribute of the self, and is made manifest through behaviour that demonstrates respect for self and others. Dignity must be learned, and an individual's dignity is affected by the treatment received from others.

CONCLUSIONS

A behavioural definition of dignity was constructed and this could provide the theoretical basis for nurses to develop interventions that foster dignity for older people.

The dignity of elders in an acute care hospital

In a grounded theory study of the social processes engaged in by elderly individuals while hospitalized, dignity arose as one central focus of their strategies. Dignity was found to have two attributes: self-dignity, the individual's sense of self-worth; and interpersonal dignity, that attributed to the elder by others and manifested by the respect they received. Privacy was conceptualized as an interface between the hospitalized elders and staff, visitors, and roommates. The author presents an in-depth discussion of the meaning of dignity for five hospitalized elderly participants for each of three phases of hospitalization. Strategies used by the elders to affect their dignity included making meaning out of interactions with others, adjusting attitude, managing image, managing information, and life reviewing.