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 highlights the range of unmet needs of the residents, similar to the categories of physiological, safety, love, esteem and self-actualisation needs in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory. Our analysis indicates that ‘higher’ and ‘lower’ needs are closely inter-twined and mutually reinforcing and should therefore be accorded equal emphasis by professionals (including social workers) employed within residential care settings.