The Effects of Church Attendance, Strength of Faith, and Cognitive Impairment on Socially Inappropriate and Abusive Behavior Among Nursing Home Residents

Abstract

ABSTRACT Religion has often been described as an important social institution through which norms for behavior are learned and followed, but has been ignored as a factor in understanding adherence to those norms among nursing home residents. This study of 1,701 randomly selected residents from 270 nursing homes in the United States investigated the relationships between prior church attendance, strength of faith, and adherence to some very basic social norms prohibiting verbal abuse, physical abuse, and socially inappropriate behavior. Bi-variate findings suggest that strength of faith was associated with lower percentages of abusive and socially inappropriate behavior. Church attendance was unrelated to any problem behavior in the bi-variate analyses. However, when cognitive impairment, race, gender, and depression were controlled, a statistically significant interaction effect indicated that while former church attendees with little or no cognitive impairment were less involved in abusive and inappropriate behavior, former church attendees with severe or moderately severe cognitive impairment had higher levels of abusive and socially inappropriate behaviors than similarly impaired residents who had not attended church. When controls were added, strength of faith was also found to be associated with higher levels of socially inappropriate behavior among those with severe or moderately severe cognitive impairment. In the multivariate analyses, strength of faith was directly associated with lower levels of verbal abuse. Race, gender, and depression were also significantly related to all problem behaviors. The findings are discussed from sociological, psychological, and neurological perspectives.