| |
Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
 | |
|
| Spiritual influences on ability to engage in self-care activities among older African Americans | | Author(s) | Sandra Upchurch, William H Mueller |
| Journal title | International Journal of Aging and Human Development, vol 60, no 1, 2005 |
| Pages | pp 77-94 |
| Source | http://baywood.com |
| Keywords | Black people ; Spiritual characteristics [elderly] ; Social characteristics [elderly] ; Self care capacity ; Correlation ; United States of America. |
| Annotation | The role of spiritual perspectives and self-transcendence on African-American elders' ability to carry out activities of daily living (ADLs) was investigated with a cross-sectional sample of 96 community-dwelling African Americans aged 62-93. P G Reed's spiritual perspective (SPS) and self-transcendence (STS) scales (1991) were used to study spiritual factors. Typical respondents were aged 75, female, widowed, and with 10.4 years of education. Self-rated health and age are strongly related to instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs) in models that include other variables. Those who are younger and those who self-report better health have higher IADL scores than those without these characteristics. Spiritual factors are significantly related to IADL in a model that includes an interaction of STS with education. Among the least educated, STS is associated with higher scores of IADL. Addition of the interaction to the model resulted in a significant positive association of both STS and education with IADL. SPS was unrelated to IADL. Caregivers concerned with functional ability may want to consider interventions based on increasing a sense of self-transcendence, and to consider educational level as a potential moderator of the relationship. Criticism of the religion-health literature has suggested that positive health effects of religion may be exaggerated, because of failure to take confounding variables into account. However, this study and a survey by Musick et al (2004) are evidence that it is just as likely that health benefits of religion would be hidden by confounders as they would be exaggerated by them. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-050415206 A |
| Classmark | TKE: EX: F: CA: 49: 7T |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
|
| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
| |
|