title: Enduring as lived experience: exploring the essence of spiritual resilience for women in late life.
abstract: The purpose of this study was to explore spirituality and its relationship to resilience for women in late life. Over thirty interviews with six women aged 80 and older provide a dataset allowing for the phenomenological investigation of spiritual resilience. Themes emerged illustrating the components of spiritual resilience. The components of spiritual resilience are having divine support, maintaining purpose, and expressing gratitude. These factors are essential to the women's resilience and act as mechanisms that promote high levels of subjective well-being and an overall good quality of life. Essentially, participants articulate how their experiences of enduring hardships are informed by spiritual resilience.
authors.affiliation: Center for the Study of Aging and Human Development, Duke University, Box 90088, Durham, NC, 27708-0098, USA, lydia.manning@duke.edu.
authors.forename: Lydia K
authors.initials: LK
authors.lastname: Manning
mesh_terms: D000223:Adaptation, Psychological / Q000502:physiology; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging / Q000523:psychology*; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic / Q000379:methods; D015146:Midwestern United States; D011788:Quality of Life / Q000523:psychology*; D012069:Religion and Psychology; D055500:Resilience, Psychological; D029181:Spirituality