Aim

To explain and understand leading care close to older persons in community home care from the perspective of registered nurses (RNs).

Background

Leading care close to older persons in home care is an overlooked and not well-described phenomenon. In home care, specific demands are placed on the registered nurse, as responsible for leading care guided by the older person's expectations and desires.

Design

A reflective lifeworld hermeneutic approach grounded in the philosophy of phenomenology and hermeneutics. The study followed the COREQ checklist.

Methods

Individual interviews were conducted with nine RNs working in community home care in a community in western Sweden. The data were analysed with a lifeworld hermeneutic approach.

Results

The findings present four partially interpreted themes: leading with respect in a shared space, leadership that involves existential questions of life, balancing responsibility enables preservation of autonomy and challenges in maintaining a patient perspective. The partially interpreted themes conclude in a main interpretation: The patient perspective as an anchor when balancing responsibility for another person in an existential vulnerability of life.

Conclusion

Leading care means being both close to the patient and at a distance when caring is performed through the hands of others. Ethical demands are placed on RNs as they encounter the vulnerability of the older person.

Relevance to Clinical Practice

The findings can contribute to a greater understanding of the meaning of RNs as leaders and may have an impact for decision makers and policies to create conditions for leadership that contributes to dignified care for older persons in community home care.

Patient of Public Contribution

Registered nurses working in community home care participated in data collection.