A Cross-Sectional Study of the Relationship between Spiritual Well-being and Quality of Life among Elderly People

Background and aim: Due to the increasing number of elderly people, their quality of life becomes more important. One of the factors affecting the quality of life is the health status and spiritual well-being is considered as one of its important dimensions. The present study aimed to determine the relationship between spiritual well-being and the quality of life among the elderly people residing in Arak, Iran.Method: This was a cross-sectional and correlational study. The study population included/++ elderly people residing in Arak, Iran, who were selected by cluster random sampling method. Spiritual well-being was measured using Spiritual Well-Being Scale of Paloutzian and Ellison and the quality of life was evaluated by OPQOL-.0 questionnaire. Descriptive statistics, along with Pearson correlation test, T-test and ANOVA were used to analyze the data and answer the research questions.Results: The results indicated that the mean score of life quality among the elderly was 76.24 17.84 which was related to their marital status and education level, as married and higher educated individuals reported higher scores than others. Further, the spiritual well-being score of most people was high and average and the mean score of their spiritual well-being was 96.47 13.43 In addition, based on the results of Pearson correlation test, a significant relationship was observed between spiritual well-being and the quality of life among the elderly people (r =0.37).Conclusion: Based on the results of the present study, it is recommended that more attention should be paid to the factors related to the quality of life for taking care of the elderly people. Due to the existing relationship between spiritual well-being and the quality of life, the significance of spiritual well-being in taking care of these people is highly recommended.

Keywords:

Elderly , quality of life (QOL) , spiritual well-being (SWB)