The Subjective Well-Being of Elderly Residents in Russian Nursing Homes

Abstract

This article examines the subjective well-being of elderly people living in one of the largest nursing homes for the elderly and disabled in Rostov region, Russia. Firstly, we trace various approaches to well-being in social science and medicine. As a result of the review, a number of indicators are revealed to be used in further analysis. Secondly, we scrutinize whether these indicators are relevant to our interviewees. We conducted 68 structured and semistructured interviews with elderly residents of the care home. Among current problems of the residents are typical ones for other older Russians in general such as poor health and financial difficulties. However, they also experience specific problems as inhabitants of a nursing home: they long for their own home, miss connections with relatives, and are dependent on outside help, and suffer from immobility. Residents of the nursing home experience a sense
of static life, a lack of life goals and prospects, and anxiety about their own future. Active attitudes in life, optimism, sociability, and mobility are associated with feelings of happiness, self-confidence, the ability to control one’s life, as well as higher assessment of one’s health and well-being. The availability of life prospects is related to the quality of social contacts inside and outside the nursing home. The marginal nature of the residential status increases some components of well-being (a sense of home, integration) and reduces others (control over life). The task of overcoming the ambivalent status of nursing home residents can be achieved by creating conditions and developing technologies to maintain independence, freedom and mobility, as well as to provide an accessible environment and expand social connections beyond the physical and social boundaries of nursing homes.