Resilience as a concept for understanding family caregiving of adults with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD): an integrative review

Abstract

Aims: This paper was a report of the synthesis of evidence on examining the origins

and definitions of the concept of resilience, investigating its application in chronic illness

management and exploring its utility as a means of understanding family caregiving

of adults with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease.

Background: Resilience is a concept that is becoming relevant to understanding how

individuals and families live with illness, especially long-term

conditions. Caregivers of

adults with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease must be able to respond to exacerbations

of the condition and may themselves experience cognitive imbalances. Yet, resilience

as a way of understanding family caregiving of adults with COPD is little explored.

Design: Literature review – integrative review.

Data sources: CINAHL, PubMed, Google Scholar and EBSCO were searched between

1989–2015.

Review methods: The principles of rapid evidence assessment were followed.

Results: We identified 376 relevant papers: 20 papers reported the presence of the

concept of resilience in family caregivers of chronic diseases patients but only 12

papers reported the presence of the concept of resilience in caregivers of Chronic

Obstructive Pulmonary Disease patients and have been included in the synthesis. The

term resilience in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease caregiving is most often

understood using a deficit model of health.