Aim. The purpose of this study was to examine determinants of feeling at ho
me and in particular the privacy in nursing homes in The Netherlands. The f
irst question was to what extent nursing homes differed in the degree resid
ents feel at home and experience privacy. The second question was whether f
eeling at home is related to privacy in the nursing homes.
Background. Feeling at home is of particular importance to residents of nur
sing homes because the average length of stay in The Netherlands is about 1
6 months. A growing number of people are of the opinion that the privacy of
the residents has to be improved. Privacy in nursing homes, therefore, has
been high on the political agenda over the last few years. Four aspects of
privacy were distinguished: privacy related to the characteristics of the
building, privacy as a consequence of the attitude of nurses towards reside
nts, privacy in terms of choice and control over time schedules and activit
ies, and privacy related to the amount of disturbance caused by other resid
ents.
Design. The data were collected from individual interviews with 686 residen
ts and family-members in 36 nursing homes in The Netherlands.
Results. Following quantitative data analysis, it was found that nursing ho
mes differed in the proportion of residents feeling at home as well as in t
hree aspects of privacy. Differences in feeling at home were found to be re
lated to privacy, especially to the perceived attitudes of nurses and perce
ived disturbance caused by other residents. A weak relationship was found b
etween residents and their perceived privacy of the building.
Conclusions. A significant amount of variation in privacy was found at the
nursing home level. This implies that feeling at home is not only individua
lly determined but can be influenced by the nursing home's management polic
y.