The role of Basic Psychological Needs and Religious Orientation in predicting the Mental Vitality of the Elderly

Mental vitality has always been the focus of researchers due to its great influence on all aspects of human personality, especially mental health, so the purpose of this study was to investigate the role of basic psychological needs and religious orientation in predicting the mental vitality of the elderly.

The present study was a correlational descriptive study. The statistical population of the research included all elderly people over 60 years old in the city of Tehran in 2021, and 300 eligible people were selected as the research sample using available sampling method; And they responded online to the religious orientation questionnaires of Allport and Ross (1967), Gagné basic psychological needs (2003) and Ryan and Frederick's (1997) mental vitality. Data analysis was done with Pearson correlation test and multiple regression and SPSS version 22 software.

The results showed that there was a direct relationship between basic psychological needs and internal religious orientation with mental vitality (p<0.05), but there was an inverse relationship between external religious orientation and mental vitality (p<0.05). The components of basic psychological needs (35.2%) and the components of religious orientation (15.9%) explain the variance of mental vitality.

Based on the results, it can be said that strengthening and paying attention to the basic psychological needs and religious orientation of the elderly in policy making and health care planning for them can help to increase mental vitality in the elderly.