Putting Staffs’ Beliefs About Values of Mealtime Situations for Long-Term Care Residents’ Health and Well-Being Into Practice: A Qualitative Study

Abstract

In the context of long-term care facilities, mealtime situations have been linked to residents’ health and well-being. The optimisation of mealtime situations is dependent on multiple aspects and is complex. To better understand this complexity, this qualitative study aimed to identify staffs’ beliefs about the values of mealtime situations for residents’ health and well-being and to explore the facilitators of, barriers to, and challenges and actions in accomplishing and upholding these values. The results demonstrated that staffs’ belief consisted of achieving social and relational values, vitality values, self-strengthening values and atmospheric values. During mealtimes, participating staff had to constantly balance these values in relation to mealtime situational preconditions and residents’ individual and communal needs. Experienced facilitators, challenges, barriers and actions could be traced to and explained by identified beliefs, implying that knowledge regarding beliefs about values could be helpful for understanding and managing the complexity inherent in the mealtime situation.