An Investigation of the Relationships Between Spirituality, Health Status and Quality of Life in Adolescents

Abstract

This study examines the relationships between six spirituality-related attributes and quality of life (QOL) in adolescents, and the extent to which these relationships are mediated by perceived physical and mental health status and five important life domains (family, friends, living environment, school experiences, and perception of self). The data were obtained via a cross-sectional health survey of 8,225 adolescents in British Columbia, Canada. Structural equation modeling was used to test the hypothesized relationships. All spiritual attributes are significantly associated with three or more of the life domains, and four of the attributes significantly explain global QOL after controlling for the other variables in the multivariate model. The attributes indicative of adolescents' feelings about their future and other existential matters were found to be relatively most explanatory with respect to global QOL. The predominant mediators include adolescents' satisfaction with their family, their perceived self, and their perceived mental health status. Spirituality is important with respect to adolescents' QOL. The multivariate model provides preliminary insights into the relevance of several attributes of spirituality and the possible mechanisms by which these attributes may contribute to adolescents' QOL.

Self-reported physical and mental health status and quality of life in adolescents: a latent variable mediation model

“…The methods of this survey have been described in detail in several published studies [e.g., [34-39]]. The survey avoided two regional districts within the province that were known to have very low smoking prevalence rates so as to be cost-efficient in assembling a sample of adolescents that used tobacco (the primary purpose of the principal study).…”

Sense of Coherence, Values, Youth Involvement, Civic Efficacy and Hope: Adolescents During Social Protest

“…Sense of hope involves emotional elements of expectation as well as cognitive and deductive thinking to pursue new ideas and solutions (Lazarus 1991;Snyder 1994;Staats 1989). Hope is seen by some researchers as a positive attitude to life and the ability to have optimistic views (Moorey and Greer 1989;Sawatzky et al 2009;Strang and Strang 2001). It is based on high cognitive processing, requiring mental representations of positively valued abstract future situations and more specifically, it requires setting goals, planning how to achieve them, use of imagery, creativity, cognitive flexibility, mental exploration of novel situations, and even risk taking (Breznitz 1986;Clore et al 1994;Fromm 1968;Isen 1990;Lazarus 1991;Snyder 1994Snyder , 2000.…”

Spiritual well-being and its predictors among Iranian adolescent girls, 2014–2015

“…In fact, spiritual well-being is an important cultural factor that can effectively reflect meaning and value in humans and their behaviours and experiences (rahimi, Nouhi, and Nakhaee 2013). Some researchers acknowledge that without spiritual well-being, other aspects of health can no longer have their maximum effect and help people achieve a high level of quality of life and life satisfaction (Krägeloh et al 2015;Sawatzky, gadermann, and Pesut 2009). Motivation to inquire into the nature of spirituality and its relationship to health, especially in education, came from the 1994 Australian curriculum statements at national and state level (Fisher 2010).…”

“…Adolescence is a critical and sensitive period of life with rapid physical, emotional, cognitive, social and psychological changes (Williams, Holmbeck, and greenley 2002) and low levels of health in this period may impact the health of adults (WHO 2014). Although spirituality becomes considerably important in adolescence, few studies have been conducted in this period of life (Sawatzky, gadermann, and Pesut 2009).…”