Objectives: Good social connection is associated with better physical and mental health but care home residents experience barriers to social connection. Activities present a potential avenue for improving social connection in care homes but residents often experience loneliness despite access to activity programmes. We therefore aimed to identify what aspects of activities facilitate social connection in care home residents.
Method: Qualitative study using semi-structured interviews that were analysed using Thematic Analysis. A purposive sample of 35 participants, including 12 residents, 10 family caregivers, nine care home staff and four clinicians, recruited from UK care homes.
Results: We found four main themes describing features of activities important for facilitating social connection: (1) personalisation with respect to residents' interests, social preferences, and cognitive ability; (2) activities which foster a sense of community; (3) finding and emphasising things in common that residents share; and (4) facilitating a sense of involvement with others.
Conclusion: We identified the key aspects of activities which facilitate social connection in care homes. These findings can be applied to a range of existing and newly designed activities in care homes and inform the development and testing of psychosocial interventions aiming to improve social connection.
Keywords: Social connection; activities; care homes; loneliness; long-term care; thematic analysis.