J Korean Community Nurs.  1999 Jun;10(1):53-69.

A Correlation Study on Spiritual Wellbeing, Hope and Perceived Health Status of the Elderly

• Sung MS
• Kim CN

Abstract

A descriptive correlation study was done to provide a basic data for comprehensive nursing care by analyzing the relationship between spiritual wellbeing, hope and perceived health status of the elderly. 195 respondents who lived at their homes and 148 respondents who lived at the facilities for elders such as nursing homes and elder's rehabilitation centers were selected and their age was over 60 years old. Paloutzian and Ellison(1982)'s spiritual wellbeing scale, Nowotny(1989)'s hope scale and Northern Illinois University's health self rating scale was used. From August 10th to August 25th, 1998, ready made questionnaires were handed out by researcher to those who can fill it out and for those who cannot fill out the questionnaires alone, the researcher read it and finished by interview. This study used Pearson's correlation coefficient for the hypothetic test and the average point and standard deviation of spiritual wellbeing, hope, and perceived health status were checked. To find out the difference between spiritual wellbeing, hope, and perceived health status by general characteristics ANOVA and Tukey test were used. The results are as follows : 1. The mean score for spiritual wellbeing of the elders was 42.27(SD+/-9.67) in a possible range of 20-80. The average point of spiritual wellbeing was 2.11(SD+/-0.97) point to 4 point full marks. The mean score of religious wellbeing was 21.37(SD+/-7.02) and that of existential wellbeing was 20.90(SD+/-4.63) in a possible range of 10-40. The average point of religious wellbeing was 2.14(SD+/-0.70)points and existential wellbeing was 2.09(SD+/-0.46) points to 4 point full marks. 2. The mean score for hope was 67.16(SD+/-12.28) in a possible range of 29-116. The average point of hope was 2.31(SD+/-0.42) points to 4 point full marks. 3. The mean score for perceived health status was 8.72(SD+/-2.49) in a possible range of 4-14. 4. In testing the hypothesis concerning the relationship between spiritual wellbeing and hope, there was a statistically positive correlation(r=0.5209, p=0.0001). 5. In testing the hypothesis concerning the relationship between spiritual wellbeing and perceived health status, there was a statistically positive correlation(r=0.1427, p=0.0081). 6. In testing the hypothesis concerning the relationship between hope and perceived health status, there was a statistically positive correlation(r=0.2797, p=0.0001). 7. There were significant differences in spiritual wellbeing according to sex, religion, and present occupation. 8. There were significant differences in hope according to residential places, age, religion, educational level, family status, average monthly pocket money. 9. There were significant differences in perceived health status according to residential places, sex, age, educational level, present occupation and family status. From the above results it can be concluded that: There was a positive correlation between spiritual wellbeing and hope, spiritual wellbeing and perceived health status, hope and perceived health status. When the nurse implicate the nursing intervention which can be promote the spiritual wellbeing and hope, elder's perceived health status also can be improved.

MeSH Terms

Aged*
Surveys and Questionnaires
Hand
Hope*
Humans
Illinois
Nursing
Nursing Care
Nursing Homes
Occupations
Rehabilitation Centers
Statistics as Topic*