Open Journal of Nursing, 2013, 3, 1-7 OJN http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ojn.2013.31001 Published Online March 2013 (http://www.scirp.org/journal/ojn/ ) Experiences of being old and receiving home nursing care. Older South Sami narrations of their experiences—An interview study Tove Mentsen Ness 1,2* , Ingela Enmarker 1,3 , Ove Hellzèn 1,2,3 1 Faculty of Health and Sciences, Nord-Trøndelag University College, Namsos, Norway 2 Department of Health Science, Mid-Sweden University, Sundsvall, Sweden 3 Centre for Care Research, Mid-Norway, Steinkjer, Norway Email: * tove.m.ness@hint.no Received 13 November 2012; revised 24 February 2013; accepted 4 March 2013 ABSTRACT The Sami people who are the natives of Scandinavia are not a homogeneous group. They consist of differ- ent groups of Sami populations of which the South Sami population are one small group. For the South Sami this means a problem; they have to struggle against a general ignorance about the Sami people and culture, which also may affect received home nursing care. The aim of this study is to describe in- dividual South Sami experiences of being old and re- ceiving home nursing care. A sample of 10 older per- sons with South Sami background was chosen for this study. Narrative interviews were conducted and qualitative content analysis was used to identify and categorize primary patterns in data. The experience of being an old person with South Sami background who receives home nursing care was understood through the use of the following four themes devel- oped from the informants’ own narratives: “Experi- ence of losses in life”; “Feelings of being less valued”; “Feelings of gratitude”; and “Experience of meaning in daily life as old”. The main finding is that the South Sami population still is exposed to an ongoing subtle colonisation. Therefore, it is important to pre- pare and teach nurses who work in the South Sami area in cultural care, traditional values and beliefs specific to the South Sami population. Keywords: Colonisation; Content Analysis; Experience; Nursing; Older Persons; South Sami 1. INTRODUCTION Worldwide, there are almost 400 million indigenous people who often suffer from worse health status com- pared to non-indigenous people [1,2]. The Sami people are the natives of Scandinavia, and they live in northern areas of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia’s Kola Peninsula [3]. The size of the Sami population is ap- proximately 80,000 - 100,000 [4]. However, the Sami population is not homogeneous; it consists of different Sami people of which the South Sami population is one. This population consists of approximately 3000 persons living in the middle of Sweden and Norway and should therefore be seen as a minority inside the Sami popula- tion. Research shows [5,6] that the Sami population in the Nordic countries have a uniquely positive health situa- tion compared to other indigenous people in the Arctic regions. According to Gaski et al. [7] people with Sami background have similar health status as the rest of the population with similar life expectancy and mortality patterns [8]. Among others, Symon and Wilson [5] con- tend that the explanation could be that the non-indige- nous population in the region has comparable living con- ditions as the Sami. A possible interpretation of the posi- tive Sami health is that Sami people have lived side by side with the majority population in multi-ethnic com- munities with an almost equal standard of living [9]. In Norway the South Sami population is estimated at 1500 people, and is similar to other ethnic minorities and native people who have been exposed to assimilation, racism and ethnic discrimination [10]. Historically, peo- ple with Sami background have been exposed to dis- crimination and a sort of inner colonialism through the so-called Norwegianisation Process, a process that went on from 1850 to 1980 [11]. As a consequence of this, many of the people with Sami background lost their lan- guage, culture, religion and identity [3]. It seems as the South Sami people have, in many respects, lost their homogenous cultural identity through more than a hun- dred years of repression of their Sami identity from the Norwegian government [3]. The exposure to discrimina- * Corresponding author. OPEN ACCESS