Evaluating a digital life story app in a nursing home context - A qualitative study

To evaluate how digital life stories can be used to support person-centred care focusing on benefits and challenges experienced by the staff and the management team in a nursing home context.

Life story work can be used to support person-centred care and help people with dementia maintain their identity. The use of digital life stories provides opportunities to easily share the content between staff and relatives and combine different types of multimedia, for example pictures, videos, text and sound.

Six healthcare professionals and two members of the management team at a nursing home were recruited. Participant observations with informal interviews of the formal health career were conducted in two day shifts and two night shifts. Field notes were taken during the observations. Also, individual semi-structured interviews were held with four of the recruited participants. This article adheres to the Standards for Reporting Qualitative Research (SRQR).

Themes revealed were (1) person-centred care and life story work as interrelated approaches; (2) Pros and cons related to the My Life Story app; and how (3) Time and information and communication technology (ICT) can restrict life story work.

Digital life stories can be used to support a person-centred care approach. However, a number of challenges exist related to digital life story work. When using digital life stories, it is important to ensure the staff time and competences needed to work with, for example an app and that visible support and encouragement are provided by the management team.

Challenges are revealed when life story work is embedded in the culture and everyday work of a nursing home. It is of great importance to clinical practice to be aware of and address these challenges in order to succeed with digital life story work.