Relationship between Spirituality and Health among Older Adults

Background: Spirituality involves relationships within the individual, between people, and the community. Spirituality may be viewed religiously and non-religiously, and difficult to article. A thorough understanding of spirituality is needed for health professionals working the spiritual older adult patients. Methods: An extensive literature review of the concept of spirituality, characteristics of spirituality, and the relationship between spirituality and health were conducted. Results: Characteristics of spirituality varied by discipline. From 1,600 scholarly publications on religion and health, approximately 75-90% reported positive relationships between religion and health, with most focusing on older adults. Spirituality can help older adults cope with life stressors such as one's imminent death, death of a spouse, isolation from family, anxiety, and depression. Most studies showed spirituality's positive effects for reduced coronary heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, most cancers, and several health status indicators. However, the research designs of these studies included prospective, retrospective, cohort, but rarely experimental. Conclusions: Interpretations of these positive relationships should be made with caution. Unresolved gaps exist in the knowledge on spirituality and older adults. Gaps include dose response effects of religious factors and spirituality as moderating effects on health outcomes, and lack of reliable and valid measures of spirituality. Physicians and nurses treating older adults should be aware of and culturally sensitive to the varying spiritual beliefs of their older adult patients. If a patient initiates spirituality discussions, health professionals should consider incorporating spirituality intro treatments to improve health outcomes.