The purpose of this phenomenological study is to describe the experience of self-managing potentially harmful incidents (close-calls) for homebound women aged 85 and older who were living alone. This is a secondary analysis of data obtained during an NIA-funded descriptive phenomenological study of the experience of reaching help quickly (RHQ) -- data that do not pertain directly to the experience of RHQ. In addition to explaining incidents when they reached help quickly, the 40 women elaborated about close-calls -- potentially harmful situations that they decided to manage on their own rather than seeking help or because they failed to reach help. Close-call situations included near-falls, falls, health problems, injuries, and home intrusions. The women also explained reasons for handling close-calls as they did and how they would prevent such incidents in the future. Analysis of these available, but unexplored data about close-calls is important. Old homebound women who experience certain kinds of close-calls might be at greater risk for other nonfatal or even fatal incidents. Yet little is known about how such women (a) decide to handle close-calls on their own, (b) try to prevent close-calls, or (c) explain their reasons for handling or preventing a close-call in a particular way. Over 12 months, we will use a descriptive phenomenological method to discern the structure of the experience of self-managing close-calls for the 40 old homebound women who took part in the R01 project. From specific to general, the three levels of analysis will be: (a) a woman's intentions, (b) component phenomena that stand for sets of similar intentions of a woman or sub-samples, and (c) phenomena of the sample's experience. In a similar taxonomy we will detail the personal-social context of the experience of self-managing close-calls.
The specific aims are: (1) To describe close-call incidents of each woman and to categorize the close-call incidents of the sample;(2) To describe the experience of each woman and the sample in relation to (a) self-managing close-calls and (b) preventing similar close-calls;and (3) To describe the personal-social context of the experience of self-managing close-calls. The short-term goals are to develop a categorization of close-call incidents (from which a close-call assessment protocol can be developed for practitioners) and to articulate a context-specific description of old homebound women's experience of self-managing close-calls. Findings will be basic to future R01 proposals to test psycho-educational interventions designed to enable and reinforce the preparation of older homebound women to manage close-calls and RHQ situations. Consistent with the PI's research program, the long-term aims are to disseminate new perspectives on health-related experiences of older women, to generate innovative research topics, and to offer ideas to enable older women to live safely at home alone. The proposed descriptive phenomenological study of the experience of self-managing potentially harmful incidents (close-calls) for old homebound women is a secondary analysis of data obtained during an NIA- funded project designed to describe the experience of reaching help quickly.
The proposed study is directly relevant to the Healthy People 2010 objectives to reduce deaths due to unintentional injuries and to reduce the incidence of nonfatal unintentional injuries. The knowledge to be gained could have a valuable public health impact relative to safety and injury prevention for women aged 85 and older, a vulnerable population group that is projected to increase in number by 333% from 2000 to 2050.
