Communication about the end of life in nursing homes: a cluster randomised controlled trial.

Despite growing recognition of the importance of sexual expression among older people, nursing home residents’ sexual activity remains a widely ignored aspect of their physical, psychological and relational wellbeing. Residents are often infantilized which makes it hard for their surroundings to contemplate them as sexual beings. This ambiguous attitude toward later-life sexuality is further reinforced by the numerous ageist myths and stereotypes that permeated our Western society. As sexual expression is mainly associated with youth, elderly people are stigmatized as being highly inhibited or totally inactive. The vulnerability of elderly nursing home residents further complicates the situation. As a result, dealing with intimacy and sexuality in nursing home residents is extremely difficult, putting an emotional burden on the caregivers as well as on the residents themselves and their relatives. The parties in question often do not know how to react when the sexual side of residents kicks in. In order to provide some professional ethical guidance regarding this topic, we will investigate the experiences of (a) nursing home residents, (b) their family members and (c) professional carers when it comes to elderly sexuality in a nursing home environment. We aim at a total 60 in-depth interviews, 20 interviews per group. Consequently, we will develop professional ethics guidelines aiming at the improvement of care regarding the intimacy and sexuality needs of elderly nursing home residents.