TY - JOUR

T1 - Unpacking the impact of older adults' home death on family care-givers' experiences of home

AU - Milligan, Christine

AU - Turner, Janet Mary

AU - Blake, Susan

AU - Brearley, Sarah Grace

AU - Seamark, David

AU - Thomas, Carol Jane

AU - Wang, Xu

AU - Payne, Sheila Alison

N1 - This is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Health and Place. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Health and Place, 38, 2016 DOI: 10.1016/j.healthplace.2016.01.005

PY - 2016/3

Y1 - 2016/3

N2 - Public Health England (2013) survey data indicates that while the place of death is geographically uneven across England, given a choice, many older people nearing end of life would prefer to die at home. There is, however, a growing critique that policies designed to support home death fail to understand the needs and preferences of older people and the impact on family carers. Such policies also make assumption about within whose home the home death takes place. Hence, there are major gaps in our understanding of firstly, where and how care work undertaken by family members within domestic settings takes place; and secondly, how it can create tensions between home and care that fundamentally disrupt the physical and socio-emotional meaning of home for family carers, impacting on their sense of home post-death. This can have consequences for their own well-being. In this paper we draw on interview data from our ‘Unpacking the Home’ study to elicit an in-depth understanding of how facilitating a home death can create an ambiguity of place for family carers, where the issues faced by them in caring for a dying older person at home, and the home death itself, can fundamentally reshape the meaning and sense of home.

AB - Public Health England (2013) survey data indicates that while the place of death is geographically uneven across England, given a choice, many older people nearing end of life would prefer to die at home. There is, however, a growing critique that policies designed to support home death fail to understand the needs and preferences of older people and the impact on family carers. Such policies also make assumption about within whose home the home death takes place. Hence, there are major gaps in our understanding of firstly, where and how care work undertaken by family members within domestic settings takes place; and secondly, how it can create tensions between home and care that fundamentally disrupt the physical and socio-emotional meaning of home for family carers, impacting on their sense of home post-death. This can have consequences for their own well-being. In this paper we draw on interview data from our ‘Unpacking the Home’ study to elicit an in-depth understanding of how facilitating a home death can create an ambiguity of place for family carers, where the issues faced by them in caring for a dying older person at home, and the home death itself, can fundamentally reshape the meaning and sense of home.

KW - Older adults

KW - Place of death

KW - Meaning of home

KW - Family carers

KW - Palliative care

U2 - 10.1016/j.healthplace.2016.01.005

DO - 10.1016/j.healthplace.2016.01.005

M3 - Journal article

VL - 38

SP - 103

EP - 111

JO - Health and Place

JF - Health and Place

SN - 1353-8292

ER -