Document Type
Article
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic increased social isolation for many older adults, causing concern for their health and well-being. To enhance understanding of how community-dwelling older adults were impacted by prolonged social isolation during COVID-19, a qualitative descriptive study was conducted to: (1) explore the self-reported factors supporting their resilience during COVID-19 related social isolation, and (2) to help understand the intentional and unintentional outcomes of the government mandated health measures. A total of 19 community dwelling older adults were sampled. Factors that supported older adults' resilience during COVID-19 included maintaining positivity, drawing on historical experiences of resilience and finding opportunities to connect with their community. However, collective safety came with losses: such as time, freedom, opportunity, engagement, and initiative. The findings provide insight on contributing factors to resilience against social isolation in older adults and suggest the value of collective, community-based approaches to build resilience across variable contexts in this population.
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
Publication Info
Published in Inquiry : A Journal of Medical Care Organization, Provision and Financing, Volume 60, 2023.
APA Citation
Garnett, A., Prentice, K., Booth, R., Donelle, L., Orange, J. B., & Webster, F. (2023). Social Isolation in Community-Dwelling Older Adults During COVID-19: Understanding the Role of Resilience. Inquiry: A Journal of Medical Care Organization, Provision and Financing, 60. https://doi.org/10.1177/00469580221148880
Rights
© The Author(s) 2023. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work as published without adaptation or alteration, without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).