The role of spiritual health and social participation on successful aging in nursing homes

Successful aging is one of the most important concepts in gerontology and is a process in which a person adjusts him/herself to adapt to the changes caused by aging and be independent. Based on a review of related literature, it seems that spiritual health and social participation can be considered as important predictors of successful aging. The present study aimed to determine the power of spiritual health and social participation in predicting successful aging among the elderly living in nursing homes.

This is a analytical cross-sectional study, in which a total of 181 elderly people living in nursing homes were recruited using stratified sampling. Data were collected using a demographic questionnaire, multidimensional questionnaire of successful aging, JAREL Spiritual Well-Being Scale (JSWBS), and Social Participation Questionnaire (SPQ).

The overall mean scores of successful aging, spiritual well-being, and social participation were shown to be 139.38 ± 34.14, 78.63 ± 19.21, and 42.09 ± 13.57, respectively. Based on the results of multivariate regression analysis, spiritual well-being and social participation predicted 62.5% of the variance of the overall successful aging score (ADJ.R2 = 0.625, R2 = 0.63, R = 0.793).

The results showed that the mean score of successful aging increases as the mean scores of spiritual well-being and social participation increase.