Spirituality and Self-Esteem for Chinese People With Severe Mental Illness

Abstract

This study aims at exploring the relationship between spirituality and self-esteem for people with severe mental illness. One-hundred and forty-nine Chinese people with severe mental illness who have contacted with community-based rehabilitation services in Hong Kong are included in this study. All participants have completed self-administered questionnaires on spirituality and self-esteem. Spirituality is found positively related to individual's self-esteem for participants (r = 0.3; p = .000). In the regression analysis, spirituality accounts for 9.0% of variance in overall self-esteem. When self-esteem is analyzed of composing two dimensions, that is, self-worth and self-depreciation, spirituality is found to promote individuals' self-esteem by enhancing individual's self-worth, but not self-depreciation.

KEYWORDS:

• spirituality
• self-esteem
• mental illness