Spiritual Influences on Ability to Engage in Self-Care Activities among Older African Americans

Abstract

The influence of spiritual factors on the ability of African-American elders to carry out instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) independent of age, gender, education, and self-rated health is explored using the religion-health explanatory model in a cross-sectional sample of 96 African-American community dwelling adults 62 to 93 years of age. The Reed spiritual perspective (SPS) and self-transcendence (STS) scales are used to study spiritual factors (Reed, 1991). The typical respondent was 75 years of age, female, widowed with 10.4 years of education. Self-rated health and age are strongly related to IADL in models that include the other variables (R2 = 0.41, p < 0.01). Those who are younger and those who self-report better health have higher IADL scores than those without these characteristics. Spiritual factors are significantly related to IADL in a model that includes an interaction of STS with education (R2= 0.50). Among the least educated, STS is associated with higher scores of IADL. Addition of the interaction to the model resulted in a significant positive association of both STS and education with IADL. SPS was unrelated to IADL. Caregivers concerned with functional ability may want to consider interventions based on increasing a sense of self-transcendence, and to consider educational level as a potential moderator of this relationship. Criticism of the religion-health literature has suggested that putative health effects of religion may be exaggerated, because of failure to take confounding variables into account (Sloan, Bagiella, & Powell, 1999). However, this study and a recent survey by Musick, House, and Williams (2004) are evidence that it is just as likely that health benefits of religion would be hidden by confounders as that they would be exaggerated by them.