Developing a Unifying Model of Resilience in Dementia Caregiving: A Scoping Review and Content Analysis

Resilience, a capacity for addressing, recovering, and growing from challenging situations, can mitigate dementia care partners’ burden. Three main theoretical models predominate, treating resilience variably as an outcome, a trait, or a process. In this scoping review, we examine how these three models inform definitions and measures of resilience in dementia care partners to understand whether there is a single coherent model and identify the gaps in conceptualizing and operationalizing resilience. We searched English-language peer-reviewed articles (January 1991–June 2019) that contained definitions and/or measures of resilience developed for or used with dementia care partners. Data were analyzed using content analysis. We found that perspectives from the three existing theoretical models can be integrated into a unified framework for the study of resilience in dementia care partners. However, major gaps remain in operationalizing resilience for research due to a paucity of resilience outcomes and knowledge about resilience-related behaviors.