Människans bästa vän - Äldres erfarenheter av vårdhund på särskilt boende

: En litteraturöversikt

Abstract

Purpose: The aim was to describe elderly’s experience of therapy dogs in special care homes.
Background: The concepts of therapy dog, elderly, special housing and person-centered nursing theory are described here. Studies have been done that show 35% of the elderly over the age of 60 are lonely. Loneliness over a long time can have negative effects. Therapy dogs can reduce the feeling of loneliness and increase the well-being of the elderly.

Method: The study is a general literature study based on qualitative studies which was based on 11 qualitative articles. The search was carried out in Cinhal, PubMed and PsychINFO. Friberg's analysis model has been used to analyze the articles and HKR: s review temple was used to ensure the quality of the articles.

Result: The analysis resulted in three main categories and seven subcategories: The meeting with the care dog (Memory, Therapy dog evokes feelings), Reduced feeling of loneliness (Meaning of caring for someone, Meaningful companionship), Increased well-being (Activity, Physical contact, Sleep quality).

Discussion: The literature study was reviewed according to Shenton's (2004) four concepts: reliability, transferability, verifiability and credibility. The highlighted findings were activity, significant companionship and the therapy dog evokes emotions. The person-centered nursing theory of McCormack and McCance (2021) is discussed as well as the global goals.

Date of Award	2023-Dec
Original language	Swedish
Supervisor	Viktor Johannesson (Supervisor) & Janet Mattsson (Examiner)