Nurses' narratives about their residents when caring for people with long-term mental illness in municipal group dwellings

Nurses working in community psychiatric care are expected to spend time with the residents, in a genuine, professional way, irrespective of their own feelings towards them. Fourteen nurses at two group dwellings in Sweden were interviewed about their experiences when caring for people with long-term mental illness. Narrative interviews were conducted and interpreted using a method inspired by Ricoeur. The analyses were performed in two steps: the first shows that residents could be divided into four different typologies or patterns - the good, the disabled, the invisible, and the bad residents, of which the nurses liked the first two and disliked the last two. In the second analysis, two themes were formulated to describe the nurses' experiences of 'replenishing one's self-worth and self-esteem' and 'giving up the caring role'. These results were interpreted and reflected on in the light of a theoretical framework in order to obtain a deeper understanding of the text. The study indicates that the question of whether nurses liked or disliked the residents appears to be closely related to whether or not the individual resident confirmed the nurse. Residents who confirmed nurses were liked and given attention, whereas those who did not were disliked and given a minimum of time together with the nurse.