Administrators in Chinese Faith-Based Nursing Homes Providing Dementia Care: Ascertaining Their Primary Stressors and Coping Strategies

The Chinese population of older adults is the largest in the world and growing rapidly. Faith-based nursing homes are key players in the provision of care to the most vulnerable aging groups, including adults with dementia. Yet, little is known about the challenges administrators of these facilities encounter. The present study addresses this knowledge gap by identifying the primary stressors administrators of faith-based nursing home experience and the strategies they deploy to cope with the challenges. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 21 administrators located in 14 Chinese provinces. The findings indicate the two most prominent stressors are: managing residents with dementia, and procuring sufficient staff, followed by financial pressures, dealing with governmental regulations, and interacting with difficult family members. The most common coping strategy was operationalizing spiritual practices (e.g. prayer), followed by addressing the cited stressors (e.g. recruiting staff continuously) and using personalized strategies (e.g. walking in nature). The mean level of salience assigned to spiritual coping was 9.43 (<i>SD</i> = 1.40) on the 0-10 scale, indicating spirituality was a critical resource for most respondents. The findings underscore the importance of supporting administrators' spirituality to help mitigate burnout and maintain a high level of functioning in the face of significant challenges.