Living in Institutional Care: Residents' Experiences and Coping Strategies

Abstract

Insights into daily living in residential care settings are rare. This article draws on a qualitative dataset (semi-structured interviews and recordings of residents' council meetings) that gives a glimpse of the experiences and coping strategies of (older) people living in residential care. The data highlight the range of unmet needs of the residents, similar to the categories of physiological, safety, love, esteem, and self-actualization needs in Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory. Our analysis indicates that “higher” and “lower” needs are closely intertwined and mutually reinforcing and should therefore be accorded equal emphasis by professionals (including social workers) employed within residential care settings.

KEYWORDS:

• residential care
• Maslow's hierarchy of needs
• quality of life
• older people

This study was supported by a grant from the Health Services Executive (Ireland). The authors wish to thank Ms. Ana Diaz and Ms. Eileen Kelly for their help in collecting the data.

Notes

1. This is a pseudonym.

2. All but one lived in the facility; due to the high level of cognitive impairment in all residents in one unit, a volunteer who regularly visited the unit acted as the representative for that unit.