User influence for people with a dementia diagnosis within the social work for home care services.

Title: User influence for people with a dementia diagnosis within the social work for home care services. This bachelor thesis studies the user influence for elderly people with a dementia diagnosis in the social work surrounding home care services. The bachelor thesis has a qualitative study design. The “vignette method” was used for the interviews which means that the interviewees read a fictional case, after which they were asked questions in connection to the case. Eight social workers from four different municipalities working with home care services for elderly participated in our interviews. After the interviews had taken place the material was overlooked and divided into four main themes that later served as headlines for our results and analysis. The results were analyzed using Michael Lipsky theory of Street-level-bureaucracy as well as the theory of ethics of duty and ethics of consequences. It was found that user influence for people with a dementia diagnosis is a complex issue, which is difficult in practice. The social workers working with at home services face various obstacles in their work such as relatives to people with dementia putting their own needs first or people with dementia who refuse to receive help, despite needing it greatly. Our result showed that the social workers use different strategies to handle these obstacles. In our results and analysis we also discuss the social workers guidelines set by their municipality that can be used for support and guidance. Depending on which municipality the social workers worked for our results showed that some are more likely to act beyond the guidelines in favour of the elderly and use their legal right for room for maneuver, while others hardly act beyond the guidance of the guidelines set by the municipality.