Centre for Policy on Ageing



Coming to terms — African-Americans' complex ways of coping with life in a nursing home
Author(s)	Lisa Groger
Journal title	International Journal of Aging and Human Development, vol 55, no 3, 2002
Pages	pp 183-206
Keywords	Black people ; Residents [care homes] ; Nursing homes ; Family care ; Adjustment ; Qualitative Studies ; United States of America.
Annotation	Based on qualitative interviews with 14 nursing home residents and 13 caregivers, this article explores how elders adapted to life in a nursing home, and how their caregivers came to embrace nursing home placements as the optimal way to meet their elders' care needs. These processes were mediated by two mechanisms: the function the institution fulfilled for residents and their caregivers; and the coping strategies residents used to adapt to institutional living, such as resistance and resignation. However, there was no specific type of coping strategy. Rather, residents pulled from their repertoire of coping strategies the ones that served them best in a given situation and in a way that allowed them to simultaneously express satisfaction and discontent, compromise and adjustment. Clark and Anderson's (1967) model of adaptation proved useful for understanding participants' struggle to come to terms with life in the nursing home. (RH).
Accession Number	CPA-030319210 A
Classmark	TKE: KX: LHB: P6:SJ: DR: 3DP: 7T
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...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing.