The Mediating Role of Optimism and Pessimism on the Relationship between Spirituality and Depression among Elderly Cancer Patients

Ilsung Nam; Hyunsook Yoon; Yojin Kim; Yeon-Ok Lim; Hyunjoo Lee; Kyoungwon Choi

doi:10.15384/kjhp.2016.16.2.127

Korean J Health Promot > Volume 16(2); 2016 > Article

Nam, Yoon, Kim, Lim, Lee, and Choi: The Mediating Role of Optimism and Pessimism on the Relationship between Spirituality and Depression among Elderly Cancer Patients

Original Article

Korean Journal of Health Promotion 2016;16(2):127-133.

Published online: January 20, 2016

DOI: https://doi.org/10.15384/kjhp.2016.16.2.127

The Mediating Role of Optimism and Pessimism on the Relationship between Spirituality and Depression among Elderly Cancer Patients

¹Department of Social Welfare, Sungkonghoe University, Seoul, Korea

²Department of Social Welfare, Hallym University, Chuncheon, Korea

³Hallym University Institute of Aging, Hallym University, Chuncheon, Korea

⁴Department of Social Welfare, Hallym Polytechnic University, Chuncheon, Korea

⁵Department of Social Welfare, Graduate School of Hallym University, Chuncheon, Korea

Ilsung Nam^1,, Hyunsook Yoon², Yojin Kim², Yeon-Ok Lim³, Hyunjoo Lee⁴, Kyoungwon Choi⁵

Corresponding author: Ilsung Nam, PhD Department of Social Welfare, Sungkonghoe University, 320 Yeondong-ro, Guro-gu, Seoul 08359, Korea
Tel: +82-2-2610-4109, Fax: +82-2-2610-4373 E-mail: ilsungn@gmail.com

Received January 17, 2016 Accepted June 13, 2016

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

요약

Background

Numerous studies have demonstrated that spirituality has protective effects on depression. However, there are only few studies on the theoretical mechanism showing how spirituality effects on depression. Thus, to find mediating variables explaining the relationship between the spirituality and depression may help to develop appropriate program for reducing depression in elderly cancer patients. In this study, we examined the effect of optimism and pessimism as their mediating effects on depression.

Methods

This study is to verify the relationships between spirituality and depression along with the mediating effects of optimism and pessimism among 600 South Korean elderly cancer patients who participated in a community-based study about their mental health.

Results

Optimism and pessimism are linked with spirituality and depression. Higher spirituality levels were associated with increased optimistic thinking, and then optimistic thinking is associated with low possibility of depression, whereas lower spirituality levels were associated with more pessimistic thinking, and in turn pessimistic thinking is associated with high depression scores.

Conclusions

Understanding optimism and pessimism affecting depression level is critical for developing spirituality-based programs to reduce depression in elderly cancer patients.

Keywords: Spirituality, Optimism, Pessimism, Depression, Neoplasms

Table 1.

Regression results predicting depression of spirituality without controlling for optimism constructs

	B	SE	P value
Spirituality	–0.258	0.064	<0.001
Age, y	0.007	0.034	0.302
Female	–0.707	0.620	0.092
Employed	–2.203	0.540	<0.001
Education, y	–0.241	0.055	<0.001
Married	–1.782	0.644	0.003

Abbreviations: SE, standard error.

Table 2.

Structural equation model with endogeneous variables (optimism and pessimism) predicting depression

	Predicting depression			Predicting optimism			Predicting pessimism
	B	SE	P value	B	SE	P value	B	SE	P value
Optimism	–0.698	0.128	<0.001	–	–	–	–	–	–
Pessimism	0.700	0.112	<0.001	–	–	–	–	–	–
Spirituality	–0.074	0.059	0.205	0.172	0.021	< 0.001	–0.091	0.022	<0.001
Age, y	–0.003	0.033	0.702	–0.003	0.013	0.438	0.011	0.013	0.252
Female	–0.289	0.568	0.480	0.381	0.211	0.074	–0.225	0.218	0.319
Employed	–1.603	0.513	0.002	0.322	0.186	0.081	–0.285	0.198	0.124
Education, y	–0.190	0.051	<0.001	0.021	0.019	0.521	–0.053	0.019	0.009
Married	–1.521	0.605	0.023	0.430	0.224	0.091	0.053	0.226	0.718

Abbreviations: B, coefficient; SE, standard error.

Table 3.

Indirect effects of spirituality on depression through optimism and pessimism

	B	SE	95% Confidence interval
	B	SE	Lower	Upper
Depression → Optimism → Spirituality	–0.120	0.030	–0.178	–0.062
Depression → Pessimism → Spirituality	–0.063	0.019	–0.100	–0.026

Abbreviations: B, coefficient; SE, standard error.

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