Relationships between intrinsic religious orientation and psychological resilience in the elderly: A comparative study of retirement home residents and home residents

This study aims to investigate the relationships between intrinsic religious orientation and psychological resilience in the elderly. Another aim of the study is to compare the intrinsic religious orientation and psychological resilience levels of elderly residents of nursing homes with those of other elderly residents. The research was conducted among elderly residents of nursing homes and those living at home in the Afyonkarahisar province. A correlational survey model, a quantitative research method, was employed in the study. A survey technique was utilized in the data collection process. The research population consisted of elderly residents of Turkey, and the sample consisted of 380 individuals aged 60 and over, 190 of whom resided in nursing homes and 190 of whom lived at home, selected through purposive and snowball sampling. The data collection tools in the study were a Personal Information Form, the Intrinsic Religious Motivation Scale, and the Brief Resilience Scale. Data were analyzed using SPSS 26, and the normality distributions of the scales were examined. Because the Intrinsic Religious Motivation Scale does not exhibit a normal distribution, the Mann-Whitney U and Kruskal-Wallis H tests were used in the analyzes related to this scale. Because the Brief Resilience Scale exhibited a normal distribution, the Independent Samples t-test and One-Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) were applied in the analyses. Pearson or Spearman correlation tests were applied to determine the relationship between variables according to normality. The data obtained from the study revealed a positive and significant relationship between intrinsic religious orientation and psychological resilience. In this context, it was determined that the levels of intrinsic religious orientation of individuals living in nursing homes were higher than those living at home, and there was no significant difference in terms of psychological resilience levels. While women's psychological resilience levels were lower than men's, no difference was observed in religious orientation by gender. A decrease was observed in both variables with increasing age. While religious orientation decreased with increasing education level, psychological resilience was found to be highest in high school graduates. Individuals with lower economic status had higher intrinsic religious orientation, while those with higher economic status had higher levels of psychological resilience. Accordingly, it can be said that intrinsic religious orientation is a factor that increases psychological resilience.