Does Religious Involvement Moderate the Relationship between Economic Strain and Cognitive Decline among Older Adults?

Background: As a resource of stress, research suggests an adverse effect of economic strain on health. Although religious involvement has found to mitigate the negative consequences of stressors, little has known about the potential buffering impact on the economic strain-cognitive decline relationship. We thus explores whether religious involvement moderates the relationship between economic strain and cognitive decline (CD) among older adults aged 70 and older.

Methods: Using data from the population-based surveys in the Taiwan Longitudinal Study of Aging from 1999 to 2003 (n= 2023), we employ Poisson regression models that adjusted for individual characteristics in 1999 that include cognitive status, psychological and physical functioning, health behaviors, individual demographic characteristics , and socioeconomic status. Cognitive status is assessed by the number of incorrect answers to an 8-item version of Short Portable Mental Status Questionnaire. Religious involvement consists of public religious attendance, private religious practice, religious affiliation, religious belief, and religious coping.

Results: Multivariate analyses show that CD is significantly associated with public religious attendance and private religious practice, even controlling for economic strain. In contrast, Religious affiliation, coping, and belief are not significantly associated with CD. Interaction models further find significant associations of economic hardship with religious coping; that is, older adults with economic strain are less likely to have CD, if they seek relief, help or guidance from religion experience.

Conclusions: The preliminary findings suggest that programmatic strategies aimed at promoting cognitive functioning among older adults could potentially benefit by including a component that addressing religious involvement.