Resilience in Patients with Senile Depression from Stories Depicting Their Illness and Recovery

Abstract

Objectives: To interpret elements of resilience in patients with senile depression were interpreted from stories of their illness and recovery.

Methods: Participant observation and unstructured interviews were conducted among 5 elderly patients who were receiving psychiatric treatment after being diagnosed with depression. The data were analyzed using Riessman’s narrative analysis.

Results: Six themes of resilience in patients with senile depression were interpreted from subjects’ stories of illness and recovery: “strength that emerged from re-recognition of abilities acquired throughout their lives, and from everyday lives”; “strength to perceive bonds with family members from day-to-day kindnesses and consideration”; “strength to re-recognize a sense of belonging to a familiar community”; “strength to accommodate feelings of guilt, thereby creating an integrated view about their own lives”; “strength to find value in loneliness”; “strength to love and entrust one’s hopes to the next generation through the connections of life”.

Conclusions: The six themes of resilience found in this study seemed to be closely associated with the lives and the worlds inhabited by elderly patients over a long period of time. It is important that nurses have their own views about aging, death, and human beings, and that they stay beside elderly patients and talk with them, thereby noticing the patients’ strength that has emerged from the experience that the patients gained throughout their lives.