Centre for Policy on Ageing



Religion, death of a loved one and hypertension among older adults in Japan
Author(s)	Neal Krause, Jersey Liang, Benjamin A Shaw
Journal title	Journals of Gerontology: Series B, Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, vol 57B, no 2, March 2002
Pages	pp S96-S107
Keywords	Spiritual characteristics [elderly] ; Religion ; Hypertension ; Death ; The Family ; Friends ; Longitudinal surveys ; Japan.
Annotation	Interviews were conducted with a nationally representative sample of 1,723 people aged 60+ in Japan at two points in time, to see whether three dimensions of religion (private religious practices, religious coping, and belief in the afterlife) buffer the effect of the death of a significant other on change in self-reported hypertension over time. The data obtained suggest that older Japanese people who experienced the death of a loved one, but who believed in a good afterlife were less likely to report that they had hypertension at the follow-up interview than those older Japanese who had lost a close other but did not believe in a good afterlife. The results suggest how one overlooked dimension of religion (i.e. religious beliefs) may bolster older people's health in the face of adversity. (RH).
Accession Number	CPA-020614212 A
Classmark	EX: TR: CQQ: CW: SJ: SX: 3J: 7DT
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing

...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing.