The effects of stressors, lifestyle, religiosity, and spirituality on the well-being of elders

This dissertation examines the role of different dimensions of religious and spiritual resources along with lifestyle behaviors in ameliorating the stress associated with chronic illness and environmental factors on the well-being of an elderly sample. The data used in this study, based on an N of 221 respondents, came from the Cleveland Elderly Study. Effects on multiple dimensions of well-being are explored: physical (self-rated health), psychological (positive and negative affect), and social (social interaction). Also emphasis is placed on assessing the difference between spirituality and religiosity in influencing outcomes of well-being. The stress paradigm guides this research, along with focus on religiosity and spirituality, that have been studied in diverse disciplines and which have been used in the social sciences. Spirituality is viewed as representing universal themes, free of dogma. Religiosity is viewed as representing moral beliefs, dogma, and organized participation. Univariate results indicate that the majority of the sample (90%) participated in some kind of religious activity at least once per month, while 50% attended religious services every week. On the other hand, half of the sample reported that they had a spiritual experience daily. Multivariate analyses revealed that spirituality served as a resource contributing to greater physical well-being, greater positive affect, less negative affect and greater social well-being. However, religiosity had no significant effects on any of the outcome dimensions of well-being. Results revealed that there were no suppressor effects by the spiritual or religious resources or the lifestyle behaviors on the relationships between the stressors and dimensions of well-being. However, significant direct effects resulted between the spiritual resources and all of the dimensions of well-being. Also the lifestyle behaviors combined (nutrition practices and physical activity) contributed to physical well-being, less negative affect and social well-being. The impact of chronic illness was found to be greater than that of environmental stress on physical well-being. However, environmental stress had more far-reaching effects, causing less physical well-being in addition to more negative affect. Implications for theory based on the results are that stress theory may benefit from examining multiple stress models along with multidimensional constructs within a model. In addition, spirituality represents a valuable inner resource that may be incorporated into models of stress. Also studying wellness outcomes as well as disease or disability may broaden the arena of Medical Sociology.