Spirituality and the Successful Aging of Older Latinos

Using face-to-face interviews and a self-report questionnaire, the authors investigated the contributions of spirituality and religiosity to the well-being and levels of depression of 60 Latino adults ages 50 to 84 after controlling for age, health, education, and economic strain. Religiosity and spirituality predicted well-being; however, increases in well-being were associated with lower levels of externalizing religiosity and higher levels of spirituality. Economic strain overshadowed all other variables in predicting depression. Thus, 2 factors predicted the psychological health of Latino elders: Economic strain predicted depression, and spiritual health predicted wellbeing. Several suggestions for implementing the findings are presented.