Life experiences of elderly people with suicide ideation at the long-term care hospitals in South Korea.

OBJECTIVE: To understand the life experiences of elderly people who are living in long-term care hospitals and are afflicted with suicide ideation.

METHODS: A phenomenological qualitative methodology based on Colaizzi's method was used for the study. Participants included 9 elderly people who are 65 years old or older with suicidal ideas and were admitted in any of the 3 long-term care hospitals in D City, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea. Data were collected from July to December 2014.

RESULTS: Seven categories, 15 theme categories, 30 themes, and 88 significant items were identified as parts of their life experiences. The 7 categories were identified as "being a slave to one's disease", "sadness as a result of being far away from one's family", "vain care and consolation for me", "continued life in a hospital, which feels like living abroad", "plunging life", "moving toward the end of life", and "sad relief from death".

CONCLUSION: The findings from this study provide a deep understanding of the lives of elderly people who were staying in long-term care hospitals, and these will help improve their quality of life. Additionally, they can be used as references in implementing high-quality nursing practices for such elderly people.