The Impact of Religiosity on Well-being among Chronically Ill Older Adults and their Caregiving Spouses
Restricted (Penn State Only)
- Author:
- Tate, Ashley M
- Graduate Program:
- Human Development and Family Studies (PHD)
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- August 19, 2022
- Committee Members:
- Steffany Fredman, Major Field Member
David Almeida, Major Field Member
Lynn Martire, Chair & Dissertation Advisor
Erina Farrell, Outside Unit & Field Member
Charles Geier, Professor in Charge/Director of Graduate Studies - Keywords:
- Spouse
Caregiving
Religiosity
Education and Support Interventions - Abstract:
- Spouses are often the primary source of support when an older adult becomes ill. Caring for one’s spouse can be a rewarding experience; however, the psychological consequences of caring for a suffering spouse are known to be substantial. Ill older adults who receive care from their spouse also have been found to experience similar psychological consequences. Although often overlooked, religiosity has been shown to be an important source of comfort and meaning for ill older adults as well as for caregiving spouses. The current work seeks to delineate the influence of religiosity on the health and well-being of couples managing one dyad member’s physical illness or disability. Study 1 utilizes a nationally representative cohort of community-dwelling older adults to examine the dyadic influences of religious participation and restriction from religious participation on care-recipients’ and spousal caregivers’ mental health. Race also is examined as a moderator of the associations between religious participation, and restriction, with mental health outcomes. Study 2 examines religiosity more broadly, as a moderator of the efficacy of patient-oriented and couple-oriented education and support interventions for older adults (care-recipients) with osteoarthritis (OA) and their spousal caregivers. In Study 1, actor-partner interdependence modeling uncovered benefits of care-recipients’ religious participation for their own positive affect. Similarly, dyadic analyses found that spousal caregivers’ restriction from religious participation due to helping their ill spouse predicted their own, as well as the care-recipients’, poorer concurrent positive affect and (unexpectedly) their own decreased anxiety over time. Further, it was found that Black care-recipients and caregivers reported higher levels of religious participation than White participants; however, the effects of religious participation or restriction on dyad members’ mental health outcomes did not differ by race. Results from Study 2 supported expectations that religiosity would moderate intervention efficacy; however, findings did not completely align with hypotheses. Care-recipients who reported low, as opposed to high, levels of religiosity experienced greater improvements in physical function and spousal support, regardless of the type of intervention in which they participated. Results also showed that spousal caregivers who reported low levels of religiosity and whose partner participated in the patient-oriented intervention experienced greater improvements in critical attitudes than spousal caregivers who participated in the couple-oriented intervention. Overall, findings seem to indicate that religious participation is important for care-recipients while caregivers’ restriction from participating in religious services has an impact on their own, as well as care-recipients’, mental health. Results also suggest that older couples living with chronic illness and low religiosity benefit more than those with high religiosity from participating in an education and support intervention, regardless of whether the intervention is patient- or couple-oriented. Researchers should be encouraged to earnestly consider the religious and spiritual practices of older adults in future work on couples and chronic illness.