The goal of this thesis was to survey experiences of family members concerning the involvement in the case of their elderly family members living in the nursing home Salonkartano in the City of Oulu. The aim of this thesis was to get information on how to improve and support involvement of the family members when their elderly family member lives in a nursing home.

The definition for involvement is multidimensional. It is a combination of cognition, receiving, and experiencing. Even though not a lot of research regarding the roles of the family members’ involvement in nursing homes were found for this study, the topic seemed to be important in today´s society on many levels. In the theoretical part, the involvement of family members is discussed and the essential concepts such as an elderly person, nursing home as a physical, social and symbolic environment, family member, involvement, different roles of family members, and experiences were addressed.

This thesis is a qualitative research. The data were collected with a semi-structured thematic interview. The interviews were implemented in December 2020 as telephone interviews due to the prevailing Covid-19 pandemic. The collected interview data was analyzed by theming.

Based on the research results, the experience of involvement was significant for the family members. Significance such as a sense of responsibility foster involvement. Family members proved out to have different roles as far as the need for involvement is concerned. Those family members who wanted more support expressed their wishes to have more cooperation with the nursing home. As a subject for development, the family members suggested the nursing home to organise joint events, improve information dissemination, and to develop their volunteering activities.