Abstract ▼ AI-Helper

Purpose: This study was aimed to describe older adults' experiences of living with urinary incontinence and using diapers for its management in long-term care facilities. Methods: Qualitative data were collected through in-depth interviews with 22 participants in long-term care facilities. Content a...

Purpose: This study was aimed to describe older adults' experiences of living with urinary incontinence and using diapers for its management in long-term care facilities. Methods: Qualitative data were collected through in-depth interviews with 22 participants in long-term care facilities. Content analysis was used to analyze the data. Results: Three themes and six categories were emerged. Participants navigated through those three categories as stages, including the initial stage of confronting the unacceptable reality, transitional stage of physical and emotional suffering, and adaptive stage of accepting the diaper usage as a part of life and hoping improvement. Six categories were feeling terrible with unavoidable use of diapers, being frustrated by nursing staff shortage and unsatisfactory care for urinary incontinence, physical discomfort from of wearing diapers and remaining unchanged, emotional difficulties due to using diapers, accepting and adapting to diaper usage as a part of life, hope for gender-specific quality care for urinary incontinence. Conclusion: The findings suggest that using diapers should not be mandatory to manage older adults' urinary incontinence in long-term care facilities. It is also critical to establish policies to address issues of nursing shortage and financial support for qualitative care to manage urinary incontinence in long-term care settings.

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