Associations Between Religious/Spiritual Practices and Well-Being in Indian Elderly Rural Women
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Associations Between Religious/Spiritual Practices and Well‑Being in Indian Elderly Rural Women K. Singh1 · M. Junnarkar2 · D. Singh3 · S. Suchday4 · S. Mitra5 · P. Dayal6
© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2019
Abstract Religion and spirituality (R/S) are embedded in all aspects of life in India, a predominantly rural economy. The aim of this mixed methods study was to assess the associations between a culturally tailored intervention and preexisting religious/spiritual (R/S) practices with indicators of well-being and factors which contribute to happiness among elderly rural women from Haryana state, India. The study consisted of three groups: field experimental group (FEG; n = 24); practitioners of preexisting R/S practices for at least 6 weeks Satsang (SG, n = 54), Brahma Kumaris (BKG, n = 54), and Radha Soami (RSG, n = 30), and non-practitioners of R/S practices (n = 64). All groups completed self-report measures of overall happiness and life satisfaction, global health, quality of life, and health status and physical health. Results revealed that FEG participants improved significantly on physical health, body balancing, and self-care; no changes were observed on the other well-being measures following the intervention. Practitioners of preexisting R/S practices were found significantly different from the non-practitioners on some indicators of health, quality of life, and well-being. Qualitative measures pointed to the importance of R/S and family and interpersonal relationships among elderly rural women. Keywords Well-being · Intervention · Religious/spiritual practice · Elderly rural women
* K. Singh [email protected] 1
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, Hauz Khas, New Delhi 100016, India
2
Jindal Institute of Behavioural Sciences, O. P. Jindal Global University, Sonepat, Haryana, India
3
Pt. N.R.S. Government College, Rohtak, Haryana, India
4
Pace University, New York, USA
5
ISIC Institute of Rehabilitation Sciences, New Delhi, India
6
AIIMS, New Delhi, India
13
Vol.:(0123456789)
Journal of Religion and Health
Introduction Religion and spirituality (R/S) are deeply entwined in all aspects of India’s sociocultural landscape, known for its diverse culture and rich ancient ethnic traditions. India is a predominantly rural country with 68.8% of India’s population of 1210 million living in rural areas (833 million; 48.6% or 405 million females). According to the Indian Census (2011), there are about 103 million older adults, age 60–99 years (7.8% males and 8.4% females). In India, about 82.0% of the rural population practice Hinduism (Census 2011). Despite the greater proportion of rural residents in India, they are under-represented in the Indian Psychology literature (Sinha 2002). The current study is a follow-up of earlier studies (Singh et al. 2014a, b, c, 2015) on rural Indian women and the associations between socio-cultural factors, R/S and health. Spirituality/Religious Practices and Well‑Being S
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