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Updated: Oct 9, 2026

Home-Based EEG Hyperscanning for Infant-Caregiver Social Interactions
Published on: May 31, 2024
Limited shared meaning in interactions between older family caregivers and home-care personnel: A focused
Hege Stokmo Melilla1, Grethe Eilertsen2, Beate Lie Sverre2
1Department of Nursing and Health Sciences, Faculty of Health and Social Sciences, University of South-Eastern Norway, 3184, Borre, Norway; USN Research Group of Older Peoples' Health, University of South-Eastern Norway, 3045, Drammen, Norway.
Background:
As populations age and home-based care expands, older family caregivers increasingly assume extensive caregiving responsibilities alongside home-care personnel. Although policies emphasise collaboration and systematic caregiver involvement, limited attention has been paid to interactions between home-care personnel and older family caregivers and to how these interactions may promote caregivers' health and well-being.
Objective:
To explore the meaning created in interactions between older family caregivers caring for home-dwelling spouses and home-care personnel in the home, with particular attention to older family caregivers' position and the health-related implications of everyday encounters.
Design:
A focused ethnographic design was applied.
Methods:
Data were generated through participant observations, semi-structured ethnographic interviews and informal conversations. The sample included six older family caregivers (four women and two men) aged 76-86 years who provided care to their spouses, and 64 home-care personnel (46 women and 18 men) aged 19-65 years. Sixty home-care visits were observed in six private homes, followed by six semi-structured ethnographic interviews with the older family caregivers and informal conversations with both older family caregivers and home-care personnel in a Norwegian municipality. Data were analysed using a three-step, cyclic and iterative model of qualitative data analysis involving data condensation, data display and drawing and verifying conclusions.
Results:
Two interaction dimensions were constructed: fragmented communication and adaptation to the system's rhythm. Interactions between older family caregivers and home-care personnel were characterised by polite, instrumental, repetitive and parallel exchanges that produced limited shared meaning and constrained dialogue. Older family caregivers actively withdrew to make space. Through these interactional processes, older family caregivers were peripheral participants in care, despite their central caregiving role.
Conclusion:
Fragmented communication and adaptation to the system's rhythm may constrain opportunities for health-promoting interactions between older family caregivers and home-care personnel and contribute to positioning older family caregivers as peripheral participants in home-care encounters. This study contributes new knowledge about these interactional processes and highlights the importance of organisational conditions that support meaningful involvement, relational practice and attention to older family caregivers' differing preferences and support needs alongside task performance in home-care services.
Study Registration:
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