Friday, 14 January 2005 - 10:00 AM

This presentation is part of: Spirituality and Religion

Relationship of Religiousness/spirituality and Social Support to Psychological Well-Being among African Americans, Native Americans, and Korean Americans

Purpose: A growing number of interdisciplinary studies explore the role of religiosity and spirituality on quality of life, mental health and general well-being among older adults. Despite methodological limitations and heterogeneity in religious measure, findings of previous empirical studies point consistently, though not unanimously, to a positive effect of religion on health and psychological well-being among elderly individuals. In this study, the researchers compare and contrast degrees of religious and spiritual aspects, social support, and psychological well-being among three minority elderly groups as well as examine the relationship of religiousness/spirituality and social support to psychological well-being among them.

Methods: A convenience sample of 200 older adults was obtained at local senior centers in eight counties in North Carolina and New York in 2002. To ensure adequate representation of the diverse racial/ethnic groups, the quota sampling method was used, resulting in 75 African Americans and 55 Native Americans dwelling in rural communities and 70 Korean Americans dwelling in urban/suburban areas. Each participant was interviewed through structured questionnaires at local senior centers. The mean age of the respondents was 71 years old with a range from 60 to 92 years. Most participants (95%) were affiliated with some type of religion. The Brief Multidimensional Measures of Religiousness/Spirituality (Fetzer/NIA, 1999) was used to measure various domains of religiousness/spirituality. For this study, researchers selected six sub-scales including daily spiritual experiences, values/beliefs, forgiveness, private religious practice, religious/spiritual coping, and religious support. The Social Support Measurement was used to measure perceived social support (Zimet et al., 1988). The Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression (CES-D) (Radloff, 1977) and the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS) (Diener et al., 1985) were used to measure psychological well-being.

Results: Hierarchical regression analyses of the study found that elderly individuals reporting higher levels of life satisfaction were more likely to: (1) be male, (2) live in urban/suburban, (3) have more religious and spiritual coping skills, and (4) receive greater social support. In addition, elderly individuals reporting lower levels of depression were more likely to: (1) perform more religious practice, (2) have more religious and spiritual coping skills, and (3) receive greater social support. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) found that there were ethnic differences in religious and spiritual coping, with the Scheffe test revealing that Native American elderly used more religious and spiritual coping skills than did both African American and Korean American elderly. Simultaneously African American elderly used more religious and spiritual coping skills than did Korean American elderly.

Implications for practice: The results of this study can help service providers to understand and evaluate the impact of religion and spirituality in various ethnic groups of older adults in order to improve quality of life. The unique needs of minority elderly should be considered in service provision. Culturally-sensitive outreach approaches should take into account the importance of faith and faith-based communities for Non-White elderly. Health/mental health professionals need to be encouraged to collaborate with their faith-based communities in order to provide elderly individuals with interventions that integrate spirituality into educational and clinical modalities.

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