There are the body, spirits, mind and spirituality in humans. Spirituality is a sort of character that is comprehensive of being and awareness and pursues meaning and purpose in life. The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of the spirituality and religious participation of elderly people on their own life satisfaction and depression.
The subjects in this study were believers and nonbelievers in Masan and Changweon. After a survey was conducted, whether their demographic characteristics made any differences to their spirituality, religious participation, life satisfaction and depression was checked, and correlation analysis was employed to look for connections among the variables. And multiple regression analysis was used to see how their spirituality and religious participation affected their life satisfaction and depression.
The major findings of the study were as follows:
First, the elderly people who were better educated, whose spouses were alive, whose living standard was higher, who had a better relationship with adult children and who considered themselves to be healthier expressed better satisfaction with their lives. And those who lived in their own houses and who had believed in a religion for 20 years or more were more contented with their lives. As to the influence of demographic characteristics, those who were better educated, who were married, whose living standard was higher, who fared better with adult children and who were healthier experienced less depression, and the elderly people who lived with their spouses together and who owned a house suffered less depression.
Second, according to correlation analysis, religious participation and spirituality were negatively correlated to depression and positively to life satisfaction. In other words, the elderly people who were more religious and spiritual were better contented with their lives and experienced less depression.
Third, concerning the impact of religious participation and spirituality on life satisfaction and depression, life satisfaction was under the significant influence of vertical spirituality and personal participation in religious participation. Those variables had a positive impact on life satisfaction, which indicated that those who had a vertical spirituality and were more personally involved in religious activities found their lives more satisfactory. Depression was significantly affected by vertical spirituality and public religious activities. Those variables exerted a negative influence on depression, which denoted that those who had a vertical spirituality and were involved in public religious activities underwent less depression. In a word, more religious participation led to less depression. In conclusion, those who were more spiritual and involved in more religious activities were better satisfied with their lives and experienced less depression, and spirituality and religious participation exercised a positive influence on the elderly people.