Although ageing research increasingly incorporates resilience, a common notion on what resilience means is lacking. We aimed to give a comprehensive overview of the conceptual literature on resilience in older persons, identifying areas of consensus and variation/debate. A systematic search of eight databases from different disciplines led to the inclusion of 36 texts.

Across the conceptual literature of resilience in older persons, three common features of descriptions of resilience were identified: a stressor, a response and a mechanism. Based on differences in their interpretation of how resilience is expressed we distinguished two perspectives. The first, classical and most widely applied perspective, describes the expression of resilience as a positive response to a high intensity stressor. The second, newer perspective, describes resilience in the context of responses relative to equilibrium, following low intensity stressors. Almost all descriptions across the two perspectives describe the resilience mechanism to be dynamic and emphasize the importance of the context in achieving resilience.

This review provides clarity on the current conceptual status of resilience in older persons, an important step towards a higher level of consistency in the future use of resilience in ageing.

尽管老龄化研究越来越多地纳入复原力，但缺乏关于复原力意味着什么的共同概念。我们旨在全面概述有关老年人复原力的概念文献，确定共识和变异/争论的领域。对来自不同学科的 8 个数据库进行了系统搜索，最终收录了 36 篇文章。

在老年人复原力的概念文献中，确定了复原力描述的三个共同特征：压力源、反应和机制。基于他们对如何表达弹性的解释的差异，我们区分了两种观点。第一个是经典且应用最广泛的观点，将复原力的表达描述为对高强度压力源的积极反应。第二个较新的观点描述了在低强度压力源之后相对于平衡的反应背景下的弹性。几乎所有关于这两种观点的描述都将弹性机制描述为动态的，并强调环境在实现弹性方面的重要性。

这篇综述清楚地说明了老年人复原力的当前概念状态，这是朝着未来在老龄化中使用复原力的更高水平的一致性迈出的重要一步。