The primary goal of the proposed research is to understand the roles of religiousness and spirituality as mediators of vision loss with respect to psychosocial adaptations and development. Visual impairment, a prevalent, chronic disabling condition affects 13.8 million middle-age and older Americans. There is a paucity of research on how religiousness and spirituality may promote psychosocial adaptation to chronic health problems like vision loss among older adults.
The specific aims of the proposed study are: 1. To examine the importance of religiousness and spirituality in mediating vision loss with respect to psychosocial development and adaptation to visual impairment among middle-age and older adults. 2. To explore whether religiousness and spirituality play differential roles in mediating stress resulting from visual impairment as compared with stress resulting from other life events as measured by psychosocial adaptational and developmental outcomes in middle- and late-adulthood. 3. To explore age differences in the roles of religiousness and spirituality in psychosocial development and adaptation to vision impairment by comparing these mediators in middle-age (40-64 years) and older (65+ years) adults. Participants will be 90 middle-age and 90 older adults who have applied for vision rehabilitation services and whose cases are recently closed. Telephone interviews will be used to obtain data on socio-demographic characteristics, vision impairment severity, rehabilitative service use, life event ratings, social supports, religiousness, spirituality, and outcomes of psychosocial development and adaptation to vision los. Hypotheses will test religiousness and spirituality as mediators of vision impairment, and examine age differences in psychosocial adaptation and development using a modified stress and coping model.
