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Unique effects of religiousness/spirituality and social support on mental and physical well-being in people living with congestive heart failure

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Abstract

People living with congestive heart failure (CHF) often experience increasing levels of depressive symptoms and declining quality of life with disease progression. Religiousness/spirituality (R/S) may mitigate these declines, but whether it does so above and beyond provision of social support has not been tested. 191 patients with CHF (64% male; Mage = 68.6 years) completed surveys at baseline and 6 months later. Four mental and physical outcomes were examined: depressive symptoms, positive states of mind, mental health-related quality of life, and physical health-related quality of life. Controlling for demographics and baseline health status, higher levels of spiritual peace and social support each uniquely predicted increased positive states of mind, only social support predicted improved physical health-related quality of life, neither spiritual peace nor social support predicted change in mental health-related quality of life, and only spiritual peace predicted reduced levels of depressive symptoms across 6 months. R/S may play an important role distinct from social support in promoting well-being in people with CHF. Future research should examine the efficacy of attending to patients’ R/S and developing interventions towards that end.

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Funding

Funding was provided by National Institute on Aging (Grant No. 1R03AG023883).

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  1. Department of Psychological Science, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, 06269, USA

    Crystal L. Park & Sharon Y. Lee

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  1. Crystal L. Park
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  2. Sharon Y. Lee
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Correspondence to Crystal L. Park.

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Crystal L. Park and Sharon Y. Lee declare that they do not have any conflict of interest.

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All procedures performed in the study, which involved human participants, were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Park, C.L., Lee, S.Y. Unique effects of religiousness/spirituality and social support on mental and physical well-being in people living with congestive heart failure. J Behav Med 43, 630–637 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10865-019-00101-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10865-019-00101-9

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