Person-centred care in nursing homes : Qualitative document analysis of mission statements

Background: Mission statements that address a clearly communicated vision can positively influence the implementation of person-centred care in nursing homes. It is known that nursing homes with a dementia care unit can provide further training or an expert on person-centredness compared to those with a traditional care unit. It is unclear how the mission statements of these nursing homes differ in terms of their wording of person-centredness. The aim is to investigate how mission statements of nursing homes that provide different types of care units describe person-centred care.

Methods: We conducted a document analysis of mission statements from German nursing homes from a dataset of the survey study on specialized care for people living with dementia in nursing homes (BeStaDem Survey Study). The nursing homes that provided the mission statements had different care units, including traditional care units and dementia care units. The mission statements were deductively-inductively analysed using content analysis.

Conclusions: We analysed 60 mission statements of different nursing homes and identified main categories that include aspects of person-centred care. In particular, mission statements of nursing homes with dementia care units describe combinations of central aspects of person-centred care that mission statements of nursing homes with a traditional care unit without dementia-specific focus do not describe. The variation of different understandings or concepts often becomes evident in mission statements. In order for nursing homes to align their mission statement with a person-centred approach, a comprehensive understanding of person-centred care and a development process that includes all employees, is required.