Later-life coping in wartime captivity: A qualitative study of older civilian hostage returnees

Older civilian hostages are often framed as vulnerable, yet little age-specific evidence describes how they cope during captivity. This qualitative study examined coping strategies among Israeli older adults abducted by Hamas and interpreted findings through gerontological lenses.

Sesmi-structured interviews were conducted with 13 older adults (mean age = 79.15; 12 women) approximately one year after release. Data were analyzed using a phenomenological approach to capture the lived experience of captivity.

Six themes captured coping as a flexible configuration of practices. Participants described emotion regulation through shutdown, crying, and mental quieting. Agency was preserved through bodily self-care, time structuring, writing, and cognitive tasks. Internal occupation through music, games, and autobiographical imagination supported continuity. When held with others, participants sustained interpersonal bonds through conversation, humor, storytelling, imaginative travel, mutual care, and leadership. Spiritual frameworks supported hope and meaning. Coping was not uniformly adaptive: some responses reflected ambivalent meaning-making and pointed to limits of coping, including reframing deprivation as shared suffering, guilt, perceived abandonment, and eroded trust.

Findings extend the literature by showing that later-life coping under external constraint involves preserving identity, relying on meaningful bonds, and shifting toward internal control. Results highlight vulnerability and strength, suggesting coping is active, socially embedded, and shaped by age-related meanings, while also revealing moral strain and ruptures in trust. Specifically, life stories and internal cognitive resources serve as survival mechanisms, transforming passive endurance into active engagement. These findings emphasize age-sensitive frameworks for understanding trauma and resilience among older populations in extreme situations.