Religious involvement, spirituality and personal meaning for life: existential predictors of psychological wellbeing in community-residing and institutional care elders
Ps. Fry, Religious involvement, spirituality and personal meaning for life: existential predictors of psychological wellbeing in community-residing and institutional care elders, AGING MENT, 4(4), 2000, pp. 375-387
The psychosocial model of mental health postulates that wellbeing in late l
ife is significantly influenced by several externally generated factors suc
h as social resources, income and negative life events. More recently, the
gerontological literature is drawing attention to the increasingly influent
ial role of existential factors such as religiosity, spirituality and perso
nal meaning in the psychological wellbeing of older adults. This study exam
ined the unique and combined contribution of specific dimensions of religio
sity, spirituality and personal meaning in life as predictors of wellbeing
in samples of community-residing and institutionalized older adults. Using
hierarchical regression analyses, the results showed that personal meaning,
involvement in formal religion, participation in spiritual practices, impo
rtance of religion, degree of comfort derived from religion, sense of inner
peace with self, and accessibility to religious resources were significant
predictors of wellbeing for the combined sample. The pattern of associatio
ns between wellbeing and the preceding psychosocial dimensions was, however
, stronger for the institutionalized elders. The findings confirmed that ex
istential measures of personal meaning, religiosity and spirituality contri
buted more significantly to the variance in wellbeing than did demographic
variables or other traditional measures such as social resources, physical
health or negative life events. The importance of existential constructs of
religiosity, spirituality and personal meaning in helping older adults to
transcend old age stresses and sustain wellbeing are discussed.