In my master's thesis, I research how the measures implemented for dealing with covid-19 affected the emotions and feelings of nursing home residents and how the occurrence of covid-19 changed their daily lives. I was interested in the opinions of nursing home residents about covid-19, as well as their opinions on the measures taken by the nursing home management to prevent the spread of covid-19. Furthermore, I researched the perspective of relatives of nursing home residents. I wanted to explore the feelings of relatives of residents who were not allowed to visit their relatives due to the measures adopted to stop the spread of covid-19 and what were their opinions of the measures taken by the nursing home. In the survey, I also focus on social workers in a nursing home during the covid-19 pandemic, on how they performed their work in a nursing home during a covid-19 outbreak. In the theoretical part, I describe the covid-19 epidemic and the outbreak of covid-19 in a nursing home. I present the Equality Advocate's Survey on the Situation in Homes for the Elderly during the First Wave of the covid-19 Epidemic. I describe the well-being of people during an outbreak of covid-19, social work activities in a nursing home during the covid-19 epidemic and the need for long-term care. I continue by presenting the case of the Centre for the Blind, Visually Impaired and the Elderly in Škofja Loka, where I conducted my survey. I performed a qualitative survey, which included ten residents of the Centre for the Blind, Visually Impaired and the Elderly in Škofja Loka. On the day of my scheduled survey interview (as determined by the Social Work Centre), those individuals were able to leave their room, walk to the park and were willing to answer my questions. The survey also included ten relatives of residents from the Centre for the Blind, Visually Impaired and Elderly in Škofja Loka, who came to visit their relatives in the nursing home (their visits were scheduled by the Social Work Centre). These relatives were willing to answer my questions and participate in the survey. The population of my survey also included social workers who were employed at the Centre for the Blind, Visually Impaired and the Elderly in Škofja Loka between 18 November 2020 and 17 December 2020. I have found that the situation with covid-19 evoked negative feelings in nursing home residents, such as fear, loneliness, feeling trapped and restlessness. The outbreak of covid-19 dramatically changed the daily lives of the nursing home residents, as they were locked into their rooms all the time and all of the activities in the nursing home were cancelled. Residents believe that covid-19 is more dangerous for the elderly and people with chronic diseases. Most residents and relatives wanted the nursing home to take different measures to stop the spread of covid-19 in the nursing home. The relatives were distressed too and experienced discomfort due to the ban on their visits. They suffered from insomnia and having negative thoughts, they were constantly thinking about what was going on in the nursing home. Such situation was a burden for them. The work of social workers during the first and second wave of the epidemic was different than before the covid-19 epidemic. They worked partly from home and partly in a nursing home, where they not only performed the work of social workers, but also helped in wards or wherever help was needed.
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