Resilience among older adults living at home: urban-rural difference in a population-based study

Abstract

Objective. We examined how individual and contextual factors affect resilience in community-dwelling older adults living in urban or rural areas in Northern Iceland. Methods. A cross-sectional study, conducted from 2017–2018, ran-domly sampled community-dwelling older adults (age ≥ 65) stratified by residency (urban/rural), age, and gender. Results. Compared with rural dwellers (n = 75), urban dwellers (n = 105) had more education (p < 0.001) and better access to organized physical (p < 0.001) and social activities (p < 0.001). Urban dwellers had higher resilience scores compared with rural dwellers (p < 0.001). A multivari-ate analysis showed that better health literacy and better mental health increased resilience (p > 0.001). Conclusions. We found a significant association between contextual and individual factors and resilience. To enable older adults to live lon-ger in their own homes, health care professionals should pay attention to health literacy and mental health factors that increase resilience.