Specific aspects of religious involvement protect against depressive symptoms among immigrant versus U.S.-born, Hispanic older adults

Abstract

Objectives

This study investigates religious involvement and depressive symptoms in Hispanic older adults in the United States. We hypothesized that private prayer, religious attendance, and religious belief would have an inverse association with depressive symptoms, and that these associations would be stronger among immigrants, compared to U.S.-born participants.

Method

This cross-sectional, within-group study included 1,566 participants from the Health and Retirement Study. Multivariate linear regression evaluated the association between religious involvement and depressive symptoms in the whole sample and in subgroups stratified by immigrant status.

Results

Overall, only more frequent religious attendance was associated with fewer depressive symptoms. Stratified models revealed an additional inverse association between private prayer and depressive symptoms only in the immigrant group.

Conclusion

These findings may help incorporate religious preferences into mental health prevention and treatment to reduce depressive symptoms among older Hispanic adults.

Keywords:

• Religion
• depression
• Hispanic
• immigrant
• older adults

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Institute on Aging [grant numbers R01AG054520, P30AG059300, K01AG073588], National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences [grant numbers KL2TR002241 and UL1TR002240], and the Antonia Lemstra Fund at the Michigan Alzheimer’s Disease Center. The HRS (Health and Retirement Study) is sponsored by the National Institute on Aging [grant number NIA U01AG009740] and is conducted by the University of Michigan. The sponsor had no role in the current analyses or the preparation of this paper. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health or the Michigan Alzheimer’s Disease Center.