Sheila Molony, PhD, RN, BC

Assistant Professor

• Adult, Family, Gerontological, and Women's Health Primary Care Specialty

Yale School of Nursing - Rm. 231
100 Church Street South
P. O. Box 9740
New Haven, CT 06536
USA

sheila.molony@yale.edu

203.737.5354
203.785.6455 fax

About

Long-term care is provided in the home, community, adult day health centers, assisted living environments and nursing homes. Transitions within and between these environments are common as individuals age, and their health and personal needs change. Dr. Molony identified the concept of “home” as critical to understanding wellbeing within and across diverse residential settings. Home has been associated with individual strength and resilience. Molony’s study of philosophical, theoretical and empirical sources led her to an understanding of home as not simply as a building or physical structure, but rather as an experience of meaningful relationship with self, dwelling and world (at-homeness). Molony believes that a deep understanding of at-homeness may illuminate possibilities for environmental planning and therapeutic intervention in all residential LTC settings.

As a Claire M. Fagin fellow, Dr. Molony utilized the funding provided by the John A. Hartford Foundation and the mentorship provided by Dr. Lois K. Evans at the University of Pennsylvania (UPENN) School of Nursing, to complete two studies. These studies compared and contrasted at-homeness in the context of both residential stability and residential transition. The first study, entitled “The Resident’s Experience of Home over Time in Two Long-term Care Environments,” examined the transition from a traditional model nursing home to a new model “small house” (small group living that is intentionally “deinstitutionalized”). The second study, funded by UPENN School of Nursing, Office of Practice and Community Affairs, focused on the transition from a community or nursing home dwelling to a new type of supportive living environment within a PACE-community collaborative program. Molony is building evidence to recommend the best designs, methods and measures to understand and study at-homeness, and to design tailored interventions that foster thriving in residential and transitional contexts.

Molony is an Assistant Professor of Nursing at Yale University School of Nursing, where she continues her research, teaches and mentors students in the gerontological specialty, master’s and doctoral programs.

Research Interests

Quality of Living in Residential Long-Term Care Environments; The Meaning of Home to Older Adults; Development and Testing of An Instrument to Measure At-Home-Ness; The Experience of Living in a Nursing Home.

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