The purpose of this qualitative study is to understand the reasons why elders move to retirement communities and what living in retirement communities is like from the perspective of relocated elders. Several themes emerged following qualitative analysis. The themes reflect three categories, labeled as "pushing" factors, "pulling" factors, and "overlapping" factors. Pushing factors included own or spouse's failing health, getting rid of responsibilities, not helped, facility closed out, and loneliness. Pulling factors were location, familiarity and reputation of the facility, security, and joining friends. The third category reflected both pushing and pulling factors, which overlapped and constituted their reason for moving. The findings help to inform the planning of tailored interventions to address elders' special needs or concerns associated with relocation.
Worldwide, caregivers find caring for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) challenging. Family members must manage many aspects of care giving, which is demanding, overwhelming, and can affect the family members' mental health. However learning how to be resilient may help family members overcome the stress and burden associated with caring for a person with ASD. A search was completed in Medline, PsycINFO, Proquest, Web of Science, and CINAHL using the key words "autism," "caregivers," "mothers," and "fathers," alone and in combination. Inclusion criteria were English language articles reporting studies with samples of children with ASD, as distinct from children with other intellectual or developmental disabilities. Fifty-eight articles that met these inclusion criteria were summarized and, from those, the authors selected 22 articles that included indicators of resilience. This integrative review highlights current research on resilience in adult family members of persons with ASD. Indicators of resilience, risk factors, protective factors, and outcomes of resilience were identified. The review indicates that parents of children with ASD who possess indicators of resilience are better able to manage the adversity associated with caring for children with ASD. Thus, enhancing resilience among family members of persons with autism may be beneficial to both the caregivers and care recipients.
The results highlight the importance of targeting interventions for caregivers of adults with serious mental illness who are parents, caregivers of younger seriously mentally ill persons in earlier stages of diagnosis, and caregivers of persons who have bipolar disorder. J Am Psychiatr Nurses Assoc, 2008; 14(2), 125-135. DOI: 10.1177/1078390308315612.
This study examined the effects of risk and protective factors on resilience in 60 women family members of adults with serious mental illness. Both the risk factors constituting caregiver burden (strain, stigma, client dependence, and family disruption) and protective factors, including eight positive cognitions were found to predict two indicators of resilience: resourcefulness and sense of coherence. The effects of caregiver burden on resourcefulness and sense of coherence were mediated by positive cognitions, lending support to resilience theory and suggesting the need to develop interventions to encourage positive thinking among women caregivers of adults with mental illness.
Relocation is a major life event for elders and has been found to adversely affect their adjustment and ability to perform daily activities. Rosenbaum's theory of learned resourcefulness suggests that such adverse effects can be minimized if elders have positive cognitions and are resourceful. A cross-sectional design was used to examine the hypothesized relationships among the study variables in a sample of 104 cognitively unimpaired elders (aged 65+ years) who have relocated to retirement communities in Northeast Ohio. Results indicate that positive cognitions had a direct positive effect on learned resourcefulness and on relocation adjustment. Furthermore, learned resourcefulness had a moderating effect on the relationship between relocation controllability and relocation adjustment when controlling for covariates. It is imperative to generate interventions to enhance positive thinking and learned resourcefulness for elders facing the need to relocate and to create the therapeutic milieu within the retirement communities.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.