Spiritual Well-being and associated factors among the elderly population in Kashan

Introduction and Spiritual well-being is one of the main elements in human health which is influenced by a variety of factors. Spirituality plays an important role in identifying purpose of life، increasing life expectancy and improving quality of life. Thereby، this study aimed to investigate spiritual well-being and its associated factors among elderly living in the city of Kashan. This descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted among 500 elderly (above 60 years old) who were utilizing the community health centers of Kashan، Iran in 2014. The participants were selected by multiple-stage cluster sampling method and the cluster sizes were different according to gender and living area. The demographic characteristics and spiritual well-being (SWB) measured via standardized questionnaire. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 13. Descriptive statistics، Kolmogorov-Smirnov test، spearman correlation coefficient، Kruskal-Wallis test، Mann-Whitney U test، Friedman test and multiple regressions were used to analyze the data. The significance level for all of the statistical tests were set at p<0. 05. In the present study، 290 (58%) participants were male and mean age of the subjects was 72. 07±9. 03 years. Majority of the participants (85. 2%، N= 426) in this study reported moderate level of spiritual well-being while، only 74 (14. 8%) of them reported high level. The most influence effect dimension in spiritual health relate to existential well-being (p=0. 0001، Beta= 0. 567). Our findings revealed significant relationships between spiritual well-being score and the following variables; gender (p=0. 0001)، marital status (p=0. 02)، number of children (p=0. 0001)، income (p=0. 012) and being employed at the time of study (P=0. 05). The spiritual health of elderly was higher among male، married individual، having high level of existential well-being، being employed as well as having incoming. Therefore، empowering elderly with higher levels of existential well-being within the religious programs may produce better results.