Addictive Practices and Spiritual/religious Life-Style Profiles: An Examination of Protective Influence with a Hispanic-Majority Sample

Background & Purpose:

A growing body of research suggests that spirituality and religion function as protective factors for Hispanics and other minority populations in the area of substance use and other addictive practices. Although the terms spirituality and religion have traditionally been used interchangeably, recent scholarship has conceptualized them as overlapping but distinct constructs. Spirituality is commonly defined in more individualistic, subjective terms while religion is conceptualized in a more communally-oriented manner. One method of operationalizing this distinction is through the use of life-style profiles, which can be understood as shorthand for the way in which individuals order their lives around a given set of variables—in this case, spirituality and religion (e.g., some people are spiritual and religious, others are spiritual but not religious). Although this approach has not been used with Hispanic majority samples, it may be more ecologically valid than traditional approaches (e.g., regression) because it more accurately captures the integrated, holistic Latino culture. Accordingly, this research sought to answer two questions using a primarily Hispanic sample: 1) is the notion of life-style profiles valid with spirituality and religion? and 2) assuming that various spiritual/religious life-style profiles emerge, what is their respective protective influence on tobacco smoking, alcohol use, and gambling frequency?

Methods:

To answer these two questions, a cross-sectional design was used with a community-based sample (N=249) from a largely Hispanic area the American Southwest (53.1% response rate). In addition to items that assessed demographics and the three dependent variables, the survey contained the INSPIRIT scale (Kass, et al., 1991), to measure spirituality, and a two-item scale to measure religious engagement (Koenig, et al., 2001). A K-means cluster analysis was used to identify various spiritual/religious life-style profiles. ANCOVA was used to control for possible confounding variables while exploring the existence of 1) differences between the clusters, and 2) associations between the clusters and each of the dependent variables. Effect sizes using partial eta squared were also computed.

Results:

The K-means cluster analysis yielded a final solution of three clusters (Spiritual and religious, neither spiritual nor religious, and spiritual but not religious). Controlling for income and education, ANCOVA tests for both spirituality and religion yielded significant differences between the three clusters, with moderate (.56) and strong (.71) effect sizes for spirituality and religion, respectively. Finally, significant differences between clusters emerged across all dependent measures (although effect sizes were small). Of the three clusters, the spiritual and religious life-style profile generally exhibited the strongest protective influence.

Conclusion:

This research suggests that a) the notion of spiritual/religious life-style profiles may be a more ecologically valid way to operationalize the emerging conceptualization of spirituality and religion as distinct but overlapping constructs among Latinos and other populations characterized by more holistic, integrative cultures and b) these various profiles may exhibit different protective influences in the areas of tobacco smoking, alcohol use, and gambling frequency. The protective influence of the spiritual and religious life-style profile also suggest that practitioners should be careful not to dichotomize spirituality and religion when interacting with clients.