Exploring the gender-sensitive feelings of nurses towards residents with intimate and sexual needs in dementia nursing care

Introduction: Person-centered care emphasizes close care relations regardless of gender. However, when residents with dementia express intimate or sexual needs, nurses may struggle with their own emotions and need to include personal boundaries. Methods: 277 (vocational) nurses from 25 Dutch nursing homes completed a survey, including the Feeling Word Checklist for a resident with perceived sexual needs and another for a resident with perceived intimate needs. Results: Positive-nurturing sentiments towards residents prevail, yet residents expressing intimate needs elicit higher levels of positive-nurturing and lower levels of negative emotions than those with sexual needs. Male residents, who expressed more pronounced sexual needs, received less affection and interest from female nurses who felt especially close to female residents with intimate needs. Conclusion: Close care relations established through nurses' personal emotions inadvertently introduce gender-sensitive and differing emotions towards residents. Nurses' capability to include personal boundaries benefits the relationship and well-being of both parties. (c) 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)