ISSN: 2578-5095
Authors: Batchelor E*
Resilience requires a dynamic interaction between the physical, emotional, cognitive and social dimensions of self, marshaled to confront adversity, meet specific associated challenges, recover and rebound to achieve personal growth. Caregivers encounter adversity repeatedly over time such that these experiences become routine creating an unusual circumstance for personal growth. Oversights in methodologies such as failing to evaluate subtle differences in intra-personal domains and adversity ratings prior to encountering the impact of stressors during a care giving assignment, at targeted intervals over the course of the assignment and sometime after completion may result in missed opportunities to appreciate valuable data that reveals the complexity of the resilience construct. Components of motivation, socialization, cognition, emotion and physical domains in caregiver research have not been clearly explicated. There has been no unifying qualitative or quantitative theory of resilience proposed addressing the dynamic interaction within and between the intra-personal dimensions and the environmental stress over the care giving assignment that considers underlying caregivers’ motivations. This article attempts to identify the intrinsic and extrinsic factors involved in understanding and measuring resilience among caregivers. A hypothetical model is proposed conceptualizing resilience as a continuous experience in care giving measured by intrinsic and extrinsic components incorporated in to a newly developed dependent measure to be administered at specified intervals before, during and after subjects accept new assignments. The factor structure of this new instrument may serve to capture subtle individual differences based on demographic factors, motivation, physical, emotional, and/or cognitive set, recovery, rebound, and personal growth. In this way, resilience may be considered a continuous factor capturing both positive and negative impact of the care giving experience.
Keywords: Caregivers; Environmental Stress; Motivation
