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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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Spiritual belief and quality of life
— the experience of older bereaved spouses | | Author(s) | Peter Coleman, Fionnuala McKiernan, Marie Mills |
| Journal title | Quality in Ageing, vol 3, no 1, March 2002 |
| Pages | pp 20-26 |
| Keywords | Spiritual characteristics [elderly] ; Bereavement ; Spouses ; Quality of life ; Research Reviews. |
| Annotation | US research emphasises the health and other benefits of religious belief for older Americans. However, whereas the US is still a strongly religious society, in Britain there has been a steady erosion of membership of Christian churches, accompanied by a loss of respect for the authority of the church and an increased freedom of expression in belief. The implications of spiritual belief for adjustment has been studied in a sample of 28 older bereaved spouses, who were followed from the first to the second anniversary of the death. Using a recently developed measure of strength of spiritual belief, a clear pattern was found of greater depressive symptomatology and lower perception of personal meaning among those of moderate belief. Investigation of the 11 moderate believers in the sample provided many illustrations of spiritual questioning, uncertainty and unease. Thus, although a form of spiritual belief is maintained, it seems likely that a substantial proportion of the older population in the UK has become isolated from their churches of origin. This article presents preliminary findings of a project in the ESRC's Growing Older Programme. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-020418210 A |
| Classmark | EX: DW: SN: F:59: 3A:6KC |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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