Understanding the Factors That Influence Resilience in Long-Term Professional Caregiving: A Qualitative Study on Resilience Among Elderly Caregivers in Austrian Inpatient Care

Caregiving, at its core, is a profession rooted in compassion, which demands not only emotional strength but also a profound level of resilience. In addition to improving care outcomes, resilience is also central to the well-being of caregivers, enabling them to cope with the inherent stressors of their roles. The current research aims to identify the factors in everyday caregiving that foster and hinder the experience of resilience for professional caregivers, working in long-term elderly inpatient settings, in Austria. This study followed a qualitative design, involving a literature review to identify known resilience sub-dimensions, followed by two group workshops with professional caregivers. A mixed deductive and inductive approach was used to systematically analyse the group workshops using Qualitative Content Analysis (QCA) techniques according to Philipp Mayring (2014), with the identified resilience sub-dimensions serving as a deductive coding framework. The findings suggest that in the volatile and challenging professional environment of caregiving, an individual caregiver’s perception of what fosters or hinders their resilience is a dynamic, socially-embedded process that is continually shaped by the interplay between internal resources and the changing caregiving environment. This underscores the importance of a holistic approach in striving to enhance the resilience of professional caregivers.