Nursing home resident abuse by staff: Exploring the dynamics

This paper explores the dynamics of nursing home (NH) resident abuse by NH staff. It presents partial findings from a grounded theory study about NH s taff response to aggressive residents and focuses on NH staff not able to c are for aggressive NH residents without detrimental consequences to themsel ves or the residents they cared for, including abuse of NH residents. Symbo lic Interactionism provides the theoretical framework. Classic grounded the ory approach was used to analyze data which included semi-structured interv iews with NH staff and abuse investigators. Two types of abusive NH staff a re identified, the reactive and sadistic abuser. Additional investigations are needed to enhance understanding of the dynamics of abuse of residents b y institutional staff and to further develop prevention and intervention pr ograms.