Summary

Coronavirus pandemic unsettled hitherto normative interactions between families and communities across the world. Covid lockdown led to care homes being closed, with no interaction between residents and their families. Against this backdrop, research was carried out to understand family carers’ experiences of care home lockdown and to identify different stakeholder perspectives on policy directions and considerations during care home lockdown.The study involved in-depth, qualitative interviews with 36 family carers who had significant contact with their relatives in care homes prior to the lockdown and 19 stakeholders (Scottish government, national agencies, regulatory authorities, health and social care partnerships, advocacy organisations, and sector leaders). With ethical approval, all interviews were conducted virtually, thematic analysis was used to analyse the data and generate themes.The findings reveal that families experienced psychological harms associated with care home lockdown, due to the perception of being cut off, severing a significant personal relationship, a diminishing sense of self, and fear for their relative’s safety and well-being. Stakeholders had a superficial understanding of the emotional impact on relatives, focused primarily on disease prevention and the protection of vulnerable and frail care home residents from the virus, and recognised that technology was helpful as a form of communication but insufficient in offering maintenance of emotional and social bonds.It was evident that older people in care homes and their families had suffered real emotional pain and psychological distress and were disproportionately affected during the pandemic. The loss of human touch and relationships was palpable. This research concluded that in future instances of a similar need to impose isolating measures, much greater priority should be given to maintaining contact between family carers and care home residents, recognising that shutting out family carers for long periods causes very serious harm.

Keywords (separate with commas)

Covid-19, Family carers, Care homes, Lockdown, Public health policy