Significance of Spirituality in the Lives of Older Adults With and Without Serious Mental Illnesses

Abstract

As the number of older adults increases, helping professionals are searching for more effective means of treatment and therapy. Through the voluntary completion of a questionnaire, the convenience sample study of 41 older adults, age 55 and over, in a Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE), TriHealth SeniorLink, compares the significance of spirituality for those with and those without serious mental illnesses. While no statistically significant differences were found between the two groups, the study did underline the importance of various aspects of spirituality in the lives of the subjects. Understanding the importance of spirituality in each client's life is one possible avenue for a standard of care to produce better mental health outcomes, and illuminates the need for further research in this area of interest.

KEYWORDS:

• spirituality
• older adult
• serious mental illness
• mental health
• bipolar disorder
• schizophrenia
• schizoaffective disorder