Coordinating the roles of nursing home staff and families of elderly nursing home residents.

This study examines families' and nurses' perceptions of the functions that should be performed by families of elderly nursing home residents and whether there is congruency between nursing staff and families' perceptions. This was a quasi-experimental study and was based on questionnaires distributed among 85 nurses and 68 families of nursing home residents. The findings indicated that the staff believes that families must assume more roles than the families think they should. In contrast, families believe that they should be more informed of the physical care of residents.