Roslyn Francis

Does fostering meaningful valued-living and social supports influence wellbeing and end-of-life coping in residential aged care in the final phase of life?

As the process of ageing, dying and death is increasingly disconnected from our daily lives, it is imperative not to lose sight that these events still, nonetheless, remain with and happen to the individual, families and communities. We can remove connection, but it does not remove the personal, private and public impact. The proposed PhD research aims to further explore wellbeing and the role of meaning-in-life, valued-living and social supports in the clinical residential aged care settings.

This PhD research will seek to contribute to improvement in wellbeing of those who live and work in residential aged-care including families of aged-care residents and the community more broadly; and guide aged-care service providers to provide greater quality of life care for residents. Ultimately, this research will seek to explore meaning-in-life, valued-living and social support as strategies to 1. improve job satisfaction, wellbeing, and death-coping for workers with careers in RAC; 2. improve wellbeing, meaning, happiness, death-coping and quality of life for residents including helping families with the transitions into RAC or into palliative periods or bereavement experiences.