The Role of Religion and Spirituality in the Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) Pandemic in the Lives of the Elderly: A Systematic Review

The coronavirus 2019 (Covid-19) first spread from Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China, and in less than two months, it became a worldwide epidemic, according to the World Health Organization. In this regard, the present review study was conducted to investigate the role of religion and spirituality during the Coronavirus 2019 (Covid-19) epidemic in the lives of the elderly. In this study, a systematic review is searched by keywords Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19), older adults Religion, Spirituality, Elder, in the title and abstract of articles published in Google Scholar, PubMed, Scopus and ScienceDirect databases. The main entry criteria were all English-language printed articles related to 2020 and 2021. The PRISMA checklist was used to review and control the quality of articles. The findings showed that the elderly who performed their spiritual and religious activities during the Coronavirus 2019 epidemic had better mental health. Also, having religious beliefs leads to meaning and peace in people's lives, which results in reducing fear and anxiety caused by the outbreak of Covid-19. In fact, older people with higher levels of spirituality had better psychological resilience and flexibility, which made them more aware of the state of mind and perceive the pressure and pain more tolerable. For this reason, it can be acknowledged that religion and spirituality bring many benefits not only to the elderly but also to all ages that it is necessary to hold trainings in textbooks and in the form of workshops to promote spirituality.