The Experiences of Deceased Nursing Home Residents’ Loved Ones During the First COVID-19 Pandemic Lockdown
During France’s first wave of COVID‐19, deaths increased significantly in nursing homes. This qualitative study aims to understand the lived experiences of bereaved loved ones through 15 interviews which were conducted between April 2020 and March 2021, as part of a national interdisciplinary qualitative research project. Analyzing their bereavement experiences makes it possible to reconstruct the meaning they attribute to different stages: witnessing the end of their loved ones’ lives, facing death, and organizing funeral ceremonies. The results show the difficulties that bereaved relatives faced during the end-of-life and death of their loved ones, including their limited ability to visit nursing homes due to directives limiting their presence, the lack of communication, doubts about the circumstances in which patients were dying, the obstacles to performing funeral ceremonies, and the lack of recognition from institutions.