Active ageing and Spirituality in Iranian Seniors: Lived Experiences

Active aging is a comprehensive and subjective concept that depends on an individuals’ personal experiences. This process would be of great value in dealing with the challenges that come in that period of life. The authors conducted this study to explore the lived experience of spirituality and active aging among seniors. Following a directed content analysis procedure, we conduct semistructured individual interviews with ۳۹ community-dwelling seniors from the age of ۶۰ including both genders living in Isfahan selected by purposeful sampling. Data collection and analysis were concurrent. The reliability of data was fulfilled by following Lincoln and Guba criteria. We stopped data collection when no new concept was added and data saturation was achieved. Based on the experience of elders, we identified three categories: spiritual belief, spiritual function, and spiritual affections The finding suggests that gerotranscendence was introduced as a dynamic process that occurred simultaneously with active aging accompanying the journey of life.

Keywords:

Iran , active , ageing , spirituality , elderly , qualitative Study