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COVID-19-related trauma and the need for organizational healing in a Dutch nursing home

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  • Cremers, Anne Lia
  • Janssen, Cato

Abstract

The nursing home sector was disproportionally affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and consequently, extreme mitigation strategies were taken in order to halt the spread of the virus. This research scrutinizes the manifestations of organizational trauma and healing amongst nursing home employees during the slow-burning pandemic. We aim to advance the contemporary debate around organizational healing that exclusively investigates fast-burning crises by translating these theories to a slow-burning crisis. Using participatory action research, we conducted two months of visual ethnographic fieldwork in a small-scale nursing home located in Amsterdam, the Netherlands from October to December 2021. Here, we present our findings constituting text and short videos according to the following four themes: (1) Emotional challenges in the workplace; (2) Cultural incompatibility of infection control strategies; (3) Navigating the ethics of decision-making; and (4) Organizational scars and healing perspectives. We propose the new concept of trauma distillation to describe and analyse how simmering organizational wounds are re-opened and purified to trigger a prolonged healing process in the context of slow-burning crises. Ultimately, this may lead to the acknowledgement and acceptance of such organizational wounds as multi-layered and intractable, aiming for a theoretical and empirical understanding of how to heal these. Our use of visual methods offers employees the opportunity to share their stories, make their suffering heard, and may contribute to nursing homes' processes of healing.

Suggested Citation

  • Cremers, Anne Lia & Janssen, Cato, 2023. "COVID-19-related trauma and the need for organizational healing in a Dutch nursing home," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 327(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:327:y:2023:i:c:s0277953623001569
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2023.115799
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Schembri, Sharon & Boyle, Maree V., 2013. "Visual ethnography: Achieving rigorous and authentic interpretations," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 66(9), pages 1251-1254.
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    3. Tania Pearce & Myfanwy Maple & Anthony Shakeshaft & Sarah Wayland & Kathy McKay, 2020. "What is the Co-Creation of New Knowledge? A Content Analysis and Proposed Definition for Health Interventions," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(7), pages 1-18, March.
    4. Dirk Basten & Thilo Haamann, 2018. "Approaches for Organizational Learning: A Literature Review," SAGE Open, , vol. 8(3), pages 21582440187, August.
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