The meaning of home for older adults living alone: A constructivist grounded theory study

It is an intriguing phenomenon that elderly individuals often wish to continue their current living conditions instead of moving to a care institution or to their relatives, despite the numerous problems, limitations and even living alone. Current population projections show that said situation may create various housing problems in the future due to the increasing elderly population. In order for the professions that focus on human-space interaction (such as interior architecture) to produce solutions on this issue, they need to focus on the multidimensional semantic relationship that these individuals establish with their homes. In line with this, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 15 elderly individuals living alone in accordance with the Constructivist Grounded Theory method and the outputs were analyzed. Considering the findings obtained, it was found that individuals attributed various positive and negative meanings to their homes; they also developed various coping strategies to eliminate the negative meanings. Consequently, the Leaning Scale Model was introduced as an original theoretical approach, which thoroughly explains the inner mechanics of the decision to continue the current living state. According to the model the decision to age in place is not only a passively monitored process; on the contrary, it is an actively managed transaction.