Espiritualidad y religiosidad en adultos mayores mexicanos

RESUMEN

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ABSTRACT

Summary Given the importance of religious life in Mexican society, this piece of research poses the following question Are older Mexican adults capable of benefiting from their spiritual life? Given that religiosity and spirituality show differential, even contrary, characteristics, this work is based on a vision of spirituality as an experience of the divine. Religiosity, in contrast, is conceived as an intermediate step in socialization during which believers are nourished by knowledge that will direct their behavior in the search for an experience of the divine. With the incorporation of such knowledge in the personality of the subject through the transformation of instrumental thoughts, emotions and behaviors, and with the concretion of the experience of the divine, as this experience is understood by the subject, the result can be spirituality. Spirituality is a construct that can be analyzed for its effects in the responses of a subject with respect to the conditions of his existence and in relation to the divine. This work adopts the term Spiritual Conviction with which to refer to spiritual and religious practices and beliefs, together with an integral criterion (that includes emotional, cognitive, behavioral and social aspects) in accordance with Holland, Kash, Passik, Gronert, Sison, et al. Montero has identified religion as an important positive coping strategy in Mexican subjects suffering from loneliness, no matter the degree to which they experience it. Other authors have reported an important association between high levels of spiritual-existential wellbeing and low levels of loneliness; a positive effect on both the health and the sense of personal wellbeing of the elderly, stressing its importance as an adaptable resource of the older adult, useful for coping more successfully with the stress caused by loss that is typical of this period in life and that has been associated with depression. Different pieces of research have found an inverse relationship between spirituality and depression. Given the multiple losses and stressors that are typical of old age, Koenig, Smiley and González have shown that the variables mediating said stressors and adjustment to old age can be grouped in resources of an internal, external and confrontational type. Following this point of view, spiritual conviction can be seen as an internal resource, to the extent to which it forms part of the cognitive assets of a subject. Religious social support is, in turn, an important external resource for the older adult. In terms of internal and external resources and the affective importance they have for the subject, coping could, in turn, be of a religious type. Bienenfeld, Koenig, Larson and Sherril documented the importance of internal and external resources and religious coping strategies in mental health. Thus, in order to determine if the older Mexican adults benefited or not from their spiritual life, the following question was explored To what extent is spiritual conviction associated with the use of coping strategies and social support in the psychological adjustment process of the older Mexican adult? The hypothesis posed here is that the degree of spiritual conviction, social support and coping strategies predict psychological adjustment in older Mexican adults. The resulting research was carried out with a sample of 125 subjects of both sexes from Mexico City, from 60 to 70 years of age. The following instruments were used The Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS) Short Version; the System of Belief Inventory, SBI-15R; the Health and Daily Life Scale, Short Version; the Lack of Wellbeing sub-scale of the Multifacetic Loneliness Index, IMSOL, and questions that explored socio-demographic information and religious and spiritual habits. The resulting questionnaire of 93 items was applied to the focal subjects in health clinics while they were waiting to be attended. The results showed that religious habits were significantly related to spiritual conviction; those who do not pray have less spiritual conviction (x=19.0) than those who pray several times a day (x=26.73; p<.01); those who do not say their prayers have less spiritual conviction (x=21.1) than those who say their prayers a great deal (x=27.4; p<.01); those for whom their faith has become more important now that they have reached old age than when they were younger, have a greater degree of spiritual conviction (x=26.7) than those for whom there was no change (x=21.3; p<.001); going several times a week to church is related to greater levels of spiritual conviction (x=27.8), that does not seem to be present in those who do not (x=20.4; p<.01). It would seem that those older adults who do not have friends have significantly more spiritual conviction (x=25.5; t = 2.27, p<0.03) than those who do have them (x=21.7). All in all, no significant differences were found among those who do not have religious habits in respect to the degree of depression and the degree of loneliness experienced. Additionally, the multiple regression analysis between the independent variables and loneliness and depression made it possible to conclude that a) There is no direct relationship between religious conviction and psychological adjustment (depression and loneliness); b) In the case of depression, the independent variables (family social support, avoidance coping strategy, religious coping strategy, behavioral coping strategy, cognitive coping strategy, religious social support, spiritual conviction) together explained 24.8% of total variance (R = .498, R 2 = .248, F = 4.485, p < .01), and c) In the case of loneliness, the independent variables (family social support, avoidance coping strategy, religious coping strategy, behavioral coping strategy, cognitive coping strategy, religious social support, spiritual conviction) together explained 34.8% of total variance (R = .589, R2 = .347, F = 7.317, p < .01). The results obtained make it possible to conclude that the degree of spiritual conviction, social support and coping strategies scarcely predict psychological adjustment in older adults in the sample researched. It seems that religious life is important for the older adult; it did not, however, prove capable of benefiting the elderly with respect to their mental health, when defined by the degreee of depression and loneliness experienced. Based on said findings, the answer to the question whether older Mexican adults are able to benefit from spiritual life seems to be No, older adults do not benefit from their spiritual life. These results are in contrast with the evidence reported in other research with respect to the positive effects that spiritual life has on depression, loneliness and the general wellbeing of the individual, which could be due to the fact that the SBI-15R is measuring religiosity and not spirituality in the sample researched, even though Holland et al. foresaw the contrary on validating the BSI against the Religious Orientation Inventory (ROI), obtaining an association of 0.88 and 0.23 for the intrinsic and extrinsic orientations of Allport and Ross. Allport conceptualized an extrinsically motivated person as one who "uses religion", and an intrinsically motivated person as one who "lives his religion". The results reported in our research allow us to assume that the predominant religious orientation is extrinsic and said orientation has no direct or inverse effect on depression and loneliness. Spirituality is a complex phenomenon. It deals with an eminently personal experience, ineffable to a large extent. If what is religious implies a should be, what is spiritual implies simply being, and it seems that there is at present a lack of linkage between both. The Older Mexican Adult today would seem to maintain a spiritual position in which religiosity is just that, religiosity, but not spirituality.