Spirituality, Chronic Illness, and Rural Life

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to report the findings of an exploration of the associations among spirituality, hope, depression, social support, and well-being in rural dwelling people who have one or more chronic conditions. A mail survey was completed by 111 rural-dwelling people with chronic illness in two rural western states. Spirituality, hope, depression, and social support had overlapping influence on well-being, although spirituality was not shown to have an independent effect. Participants reported unexpectedly high levels of hope and low levels of depression despite living with chronic illness. Although spirituality did not have an independent effect, the group as a whole had active spiritual and religious lives, possibly influencing the high levels of hope and low levels of depression found. The positive picture of rural people with chronic illness needs further investigation for possible mitigating effects of spirituality on problems associated with chronic illness.