Older ill persons’ and their adult children’s experiences with primary healthcare: A reflective lifeworld research approach

Aging in place puts ill and frail older persons in a vulnerable situation, and relatives, especially adult children, are expected to assume caring responsibilities. Healthcare professionals, like homecare nurses, play a key role in providing care to older persons needing support to live at home. However, the quality of primary home care has been questioned. The aim of this study was to describe older persons living at home and their adult children’s lived experiences with caring responsibility assumed by healthcare professionals. We used a reflective lifeworld research approach and analyzed 23 interviews and eight diaries. The COREQ checklist was followed. The findings revealed that caring responsibility is tantamount to being professionally competent and balancing immanent power to either promote or inhibit important areas of the older persons’ and their adult children’s lifeworld. Blurred lines of caring responsibility between the participants, the healthcare professionals, and the healthcare systems occurred and indicated that there were errors of commission and omission regarding the safety of older persons in their own homes.