Citation: Dayanandan, Swapna, and Kalyani Mehta. 2022. What Does Joy in Living Mean to Elderly Residents of Nursing Homes in Singapore? Religions 13: 469. https://doi.org/ 10.3390/rel13050469 Academic Editor: Jane Kuepfer Received: 25 March 2022 Accepted: 17 May 2022 Published: 23 May 2022 Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affil- iations. Copyright: © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). religions Article What Does Joy in Living Mean to Elderly Residents of Nursing Homes in Singapore? Swapna Dayanandan * and Kalyani Mehta S R Nathan School of Human Development, Singapore University of Social Sciences, Singapore 599494, Singapore; kmkalyani001@suss.edu.sg or kskm2013@gmail.com * Correspondence: swapna002@suss.edu.sg or srswapnaram@gmail.com Abstract: The rapid ageing of Singapore’s population has led to the phenomenon of more elderly spending more total years in nursing homes. This study aimed to explore the meaning of Joy in Living to elderly residents of nursing homes in Singapore, the enabling and disenabling conditions to Joy in Living in nursing homes and how Person-centered Care can support Joy in Living in nursing homes. The concept of Joy in Living is used in this study as it is unique to an individual elderly’s experience; The study employed hermeneutical phenomenological research methodology to allow for the exploration of Joy in Living in lived experiences of elderly residents through in-depth sixteen semi-structured interviews with elderly residents and six participant observations of three nursing homes (pre and post interviews) between July 2021 and November 2021; Seven themes for Joy in Living experiences to flourish were identified, including “supportive nursing home environment and practices”, “connectedness through meaningful relationships”, “meaningful daily living”, “fulfil the need for spiritual care”, “personal control”, “desire to be free from worries”, and “adapting to changes”, each of which explains a facet of Joy in Living experiences of the elderly residing in nursing homes. These themes include the enabling and disenabling conditions to Joy in Living in nursing homes; Focusing efforts and resources on enabling the seven themes, including fulfilling the need for spiritual care will allow Joy in Living experiences of elderly to flourish in nursing homes. This in turn promotes better psychosocial well-being of the elderly and better living environments where nursing home residents may enjoy satisfactory accommodation while spending their remaining years in joy. Keywords: nursing homes; elderly; Joy in Living; spirituality; hermeneutical phenomenology 1. Introduction Medical advancement and higher living standards have led to increased average life spans. These, coupled with decreasing fertility rates, have translated into an ageing population worldwide and in Singapore. In 2021, 16.03% of Singapore’s total resident population (citizens and permanent residents) were aged 65 years and above: the elderly population growth increased by 7.23 per cent from 8.80% in 2009 (Department of Statistics Singapore 2021). It is projected that in 2030, 1 in 4 Singaporeans will be aged 65 years and above (Hirschmann 2020). The expected burden that an ageing population places on public health care expendi- ture in the Intermediate and Long-Term Care Sector (ILTC) is exacerbated by rising chronic diseases in the elderly (Goh et al. 2015). Several initiatives are in place to mitigate this and enable older people to “age-in-place” and within the community. However, the rush to ramp up capacity might not have placed the elderly resident at the heart of the design and delivery of nursing home services. Basu (2016) stated that the elderly residents are cramped in the living quarters. Singaporeans’ perception of nursing home services is poor. A quali- tative study was conducted in 2015 among people aged 50 years and above on perceptions and attitudes regarding ILTC. It entailed one-on-one interviews with care recipients and their primary caregivers using various eldercare services available in Singapore, including Religions 2022, 13, 469. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13050469 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/religions