Study of Relationship between Spiritual Health and Depression among Elderly People

The spiritual health is one of the most important aspects of human health. Overall, spiritual health is determined with stability characteristics of life, coordination, feeling close relationship with God, society and environment. Spiritual health during aging is important since elderly people are very vulnerable and sensitive. The aim of this study was to determine the relationship between spiritual healths of elderly people with depression in Ahvaz retired oil industry. This study is cross-sectional and correlational. 200 elderly of Ahvaz retired oil industry were selected by using simple sampling method. Spiritual well-being (SWB) questionnaire was used to spiritual health assessment and depression questionnaire (GDS) was used to depression assessmentand. SPSS 16 software was used and results were analyzed by using multivariate analysis of variance and regression. Results showed that average age was 65±4. In terms of education the highest frequency was seen among group less than diploma with 44%. The average score for spiritual health was 105± 13.8 and for depression was 4.35±4.2. Spiritual health for most of participant was at a high level (36/54%), then in the middle (53/45). there is a significant negative relationship between depression and spiritual health of aging (p = 0.0001).Conclusion & The results of this study showed that there are a significant relationship between depression and spiritual health during ageing and notify to spiritual health is very helpful to reduce psychological problems.