Older people enacting resilience in stories about living alone and receiving home care

Bibliographic Data

ID7146263
AuthorsKristin S Voie (0000-0002-8745-5192, UiT The Arctic University of Norway, corresponding author), Janine Wiles (0000-0001-9538-4630, University of Auckland), Bodil Hansen Blix (0000-0002-1049-4636, Western Norway University of Applied Sciences), Margrethe Kristiansen (UiT The Arctic University of Norway), Ann Karin Helgesen (0000-0003-4572-9439, Østfold University of Applied Sciences), Kjersti Sunde Mæhre (0000-0002-3662-6131, UiT The Arctic University of Norway)
Year2025
Volume45
Issue4
Pages776-795
Publication date2025-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAgeing and Society (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0144-686X • E-ISSN: 1469-1779
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0144686x23000880
OpenAlexW4390954275
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited46

Although older people who live alone might be in a vulnerable situation, they have often managed their everyday life for a long time, frequently with health challenges. In this article, we explore how nine older persons who live alone, who receive home care and are identified by home care professionals as being frail, manage their everyday lives by inquiring into their stories about living alone and receiving home care. We conducted three qualitative interviews with each of the nine participants over a period of eight months and analysed the data using thematic analysis and a narrative positioning analysis. Using the concept of resilience as our analytic lens, we identified three thematic threads: continuity, adaptation and resistance. In the narrative positioning analysis of three participants' stories, we identified that the participants used the processes of continuity, adaptation and resistance strategically and interchangeably. The study thus provides insight into how older people who live alone and use home care services narrate their balancing of strengths and vulnerabilities, and engage in the construction and maintenance of a sense of self through positioning in relation to master narratives. Older people's narrations are nuanced and complex, and this study indicates that encouraging storytelling and engaging with older people's narrations might support how older people enact resilience and thus their management of everyday life when living alone and ageing in place

Adaptation (eye) · Aging in place · Everyday life · Narrative · Narrative inquiry · Older people · Political science · Psychological resilience · Qualitative research · Resistance (ecology) · Sociology · Storytelling · Thematic analysis · Frailty in Older Adults · Geriatric Care and Nursing Homes · Medicine · Nursing · Psychology · Resilience and Mental Health · Social Psychology · Gerontology

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