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Amazing numbers and bottom rankings: the reporting of nursing home resident user surveys in the press

Elisabeth Carlstedt (School of Social Work, Lund University, Lund, Sweden)
Håkan Jönson (School of Social Work, Lund University, Lund, Sweden)

International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy

ISSN: 0144-333X

Article publication date: 2 February 2021

Issue publication date: 2 November 2021

196

Abstract

Purpose

Media reporting is one of many circumstances that nursing homes have to relate to, because of the reputational risks. The aim of this article is to investigate media representations of Swedish nursing homes in relation to reports on an annual national user survey.

Design/methodology/approach

The empirical data consist of 381 Swedish newspaper articles about the survey results. The questions guiding the analysis were: what messages on nursing homes are communicated, and how are claims organized in order to appear factual?

Findings

The data show that press reports focus on comparisons of care units' survey results, eldercare representatives' explanations of the results, and what improvements will be made in order to do better in the next year's survey. With their use of truth-making rhetoric, press articles construct survey results as credible and valid, thus mirroring user perceptions and ultimately nursing home quality. The selection of nursing home representatives' comments equally reinforces the validity of claims.

Originality/value

Given nursing homes' problems with demonstrating success, the authors argue that media reports on the user survey is a way for eldercare organizations to achieve results in an otherwise resultless field, and while media reports might be seen as prompting change in nursing home care, what is ultimately achieved is the legitimation of a costly survey with low response rate.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

The study was carried out as part of the research programme “Individual Care and Universal Welfare: Dilemmas in the Age of Marketisation”. The authors thanks to Tove Harnett for reading the article at an earlier stage.Funding: This work was supported by the Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare (FORTE, grant number 2013-2296).

Citation

Carlstedt, E. and Jönson, H. (2021), "Amazing numbers and bottom rankings: the reporting of nursing home resident user surveys in the press", International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, Vol. 41 No. 11/12, pp. 1264-1277. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJSSP-07-2020-0266

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2021, Emerald Publishing Limited

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