Spiritual services needed by the elderly in nursing homes

Abstract

Older adults are a group vulnerable to health problems, and cases continue to increase. One of the reasons is living in a nursing home. So far, efforts have been made to improve older adults’ care services for their Quality of Life (QoL). However, one thing that is forgotten is spiritual services for older adults. This research aims to find relevant aspects between care and spiritual services to improve the QoL for older adult people living in nursing homes. This was a cross-sectional study. The sample size was 131 older adult people living in nursing homes. Samples were taken through simple random sampling with the criteria of being able to communicate and having a good cognitive function. Care services were measured using the Services Assessment Scale (SVAS) questionnaire, spiritual services were measured using the Spiritual Assessment Scale (SAS) questionnaire, and QoL was measured using the World Health Organization Quality of Life Older (WHOQOL-OLD) questionnaire. Data analysis used the gamma test. Respondents in this study were mostly women (55.5%), aged 60-74 years (62.6%), who had an elementary school graduation education (56.5%). Most respondents received low care services (74.0%), low spiritual services (84.0%), and most of them had low QoL (82.4%). The results showed a significant correlation between care services and QoL (p=0.000 and r=0.623), and between spiritual services and QoL (p=0.000 and r=0.755). Older adults in nursing homes need spiritual services and care services to improve their QoL.