Centre for Policy on Ageing



Altered values concerning meal procedures among caregivers in elderly care
Author(s)	Birgitta Sidenvall
Journal title	Health Care in Later Life, vol 2, no 3, July 1997
Pages	pp 187-196
Keywords	Meals services ; Geriatric hospitals ; Personnel ; Training [welfare work] ; Sweden.
Annotation	In this study, meal procedures at a rehabilitation and long-term care clinic in Sweden were found to have a ritual feature. The idea of fellowship between table mates and the symbolic value of the food in combination with the desire of the caregivers to keep things in order, gave the care a stable structure. The effect was that the individual needs of the patients were not taken into account. The aim of the study was to evaluate whether an internal educational course could alter the attitudes to dining space and ways to serve foods to patients in the wards in the clinic. The method was a pre-test, intervention (an educational course) and post-test design. The same questionnaire was used in both 1993 and 1996. In 1996, there was a change in attitude in favour of individual needs, such as private eating and self-service. Besides the educational course, meals were under discussion in the wards, which makes it difficult to ascertain whether the change of attitude were due to the intervention or the discussion.
Accession Number	CPA-980212234 A
Classmark	NR: LDA: QM: QW: 76P
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