Relationship between Spiritual Well-Being , Life Satisfaction and Depression : A Study of Middle Aged People

The aim of the present study was to study spiritual well-being, life satisfaction and depression among middle aged people. 100 middle aged persons were taken for the present study. The Spiritual wellbeing Scale (SWB) developed by Paloutzian and Ellison (1982), Life Satisfaction Scale by Singh and Joseph and Beck Depression Inventory (2nd edition, 1996) were used to examine spiritual well-being, life satisfaction and depression respectively. It was revealed from the study that out of 100 middle aged people, 79% showed average level, and 21% showed high level of spiritual well being. In terms of life satisfaction, of the total sample 43% fall in average level and 57% fall in high level of life satisfaction. Also it was found that out of the total sample 68% fall in the minimal level of depression, 16% fall in the mild level, 10% fall in the moderate level of depression and the remaining 6% of the sample fall in the severe level of depression. Further, results of the study revealed significant negative correlations of spiritual well being and life satisfaction with depression among middle aged people. Also significant positive correlation of spiritual well being with life satisfaction was found among them. Furthermore results did not reveal any significant differences for spiritual well-being, life satisfaction and depression among middle aged people as far as their gender is concerned.

higher being or God, and a horizontal dimension that involves a sense of purpose and meaning in life.Spiritual well-being is not synonymous with belief or practice in the particular aspects of a religion.Instead, it is an affirmation of life in a relationship with God, self, community, and environment.It nurtures wholeness (Blazer, 1991).Spiritual well-being is about our inner life and its relationship with the wider world.It includes our relationship with the environment; spiritual well-being does not just reflect religious beliefs although for people of a religious faith.It is considered to be a primary coping resource on the journey of recovery and healing.It can be practiced in numerous ways with its main purpose being to find purpose and meaning in life.Life-satisfaction is positively related to spiritual support and spiritual openness (Genia, and Cooke, (1998).The improvement in the practices of religion and spirituality will have the positive effect on both mental and physical health and is strongly associated with both life satisfaction and quality of life (Seybold, and Hill, 2001;Tate, and Forchheimer, 2002).
Life satisfaction is the way a person perceives how his or her life has been and how they feel about where it is going in the future.It is a measure of well-being and may be assessed in terms of mood, satisfaction with relations with others and with achieved goals, self-concepts, and selfperceived ability to cope with daily life.It is having a favorable attitude of one's life as a whole rather than their current feelings.Life satisfaction can reflect experiences that have affected a person in a positive way.These experiences have the ability to motivate people to pursue and reach their goals (Bailey, Eng, Frisch, & Snyder, 2007).It has been documented that lower life satisfaction met the criteria for life time major depression (Ragnhild, et al., 2012) Depression is a state of low mood and aversion to activity that can affect a person's thoughts, behavior, feelings and sense of well-being (Salmans, 1997).Depressed people feel sad, anxious, empty, hopeless, worried, helpless, worthless, guilty, irritable, hurt, or restless.They may lose interest in activities that once were pleasurable, experience loss of appetite or overeating, have problems concentrating, remembering details, or making decisions, and may contemplate, attempt, or commit suicide.During stressful circumstances, religious involvements have more positive impact on mental health and are inversely related to depression and positively related to life satisfaction (Almedia, et al., 2006;Yoon, and Lee, 2007).

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY For the purpose of the study following objectives have been formulated
1. To assess Spiritual well being, Life satisfaction and Depression among middle aged people.2. To study the relationship between spiritual well being and life satisfaction among middle aged people.3. To study the relationship between spiritual well being and depression among middle aged people.

4.
To study the relationship between life satisfaction and depression among middle aged people.

Hypothesis
H 01 There is no significant relationship between spiritual well being and life satisfaction among middle aged people.
H 02 There is no significant relationship between spiritual well being and depression among middle aged people.
H 03 There is no significant relationship between life satisfaction and depression among middle aged people.
H 04 There will be no significant difference in spiritual well being of middle aged people as far as their gender is concerned.
H 05 There will be no significant difference in life satisfaction of middle aged people as far as their gender is concerned.
H 06 There will be no significant difference in depression of middle aged people as far as their gender is concerned.

Sample
The 2) Life Satisfaction Scale: For measuring the life satisfaction of the subjects, Life Satisfaction Scale (L -S Scale) was used.The scale is developed by Singh and Joseph (1996).The scale consists of 35 items, individually rated on the five point scale-Always, Often, Sometimes, Seldom and Never.Its reliability and validity is adequate.

3) Becks Depression Inventory (2 nd edition):
The Scale (BDI-II) was developed by Beck, Steer and Brown (1996).It is a 21-item self report instrument for measuring the severity of depression.The BDI -II is scored by summing the ratings for 21 items, and each item is rated on a 4 -point scale ranging from 0 to 3.

Statistical Analysis:
In proposed study central tendencies, (mean, standard deviation), Pearson's correlation coefficient and T-test were used.  1 shows that out of total sample 0% fall at low level of spiritual wellbeing, 79% fall on Average level, and 21% fall at high level of spiritual wellbeing.In terms of life satisfaction, of the total sample population 0% fall at low level of life satisfaction, 43% fall at average level and 57% fall at high level of life satisfaction.The above table 3 reveals that out of the total sample 68% fall in the minimal level of depression, 16% fall in the mild level of depression, 10% fall in the moderate level of depression and the remaining 6% of the sample fall in the severe level of depression.The above table 4 shows the correlation coefficient between spiritual wellbeing and life satisfaction, that is 0.24.The correlation is positive and is significant at 0.05 level of significance.Hence our Hypothesis H 01 is rejected

Table 5 Showing Correlation between Spiritual wellbeing, Life satisfaction and Depression among middle aged people (N=100) Variable Depression
Spiritual wellbeing r = -0.28* Life Satisfaction r = -0.52 * *.P ≤ 0.05 level of significance The above table 5 indicates a negative correlation (-0.52) between spiritual wellbeing and life satisfaction and depression, which is significant at 0.05 level of significance.Hence our hypotheses, H 02 and H 03 are rejected.8 shows that, there is no significant difference on life satisfaction as far as gender, education, income and age of middle aged people is concerned.Thus our null hypothesis H 06 is accepted.

DISCUSSION
The present research endeavor was aimed to assess and to study the relationship between spiritual wellbeing, life satisfaction and depression among middle aged people.The study revealed that, 79% of the subjects fall in Average level, and 21% are in high level of spiritual well being, while as no subject fall in low level of spiritual well being.
Regarding life satisfaction it was found that, out of 100 middle aged people no one fall in low level of life satisfaction scale, 43% showed average level and 57% showed high level of life satisfaction.
Further, with respect to depression, it was found that out of 100 middle aged people 68% of people showed minimal level of depression, 16% of people showed mild level of depression, 10% showed moderate level of depression & 6% of people showed severe level of depression.In addition, we also came to know that: • The correlation of spiritual well being and depression among middle aged people was found to be significantly negative.This finding is consistent with the study conducted by Callen, et al. (2003).• Significant negative correlation of life satisfaction with depression was found among middle aged people.This finding is consistent with the study conducted by Koivumaa, et al. (2012).
• Significant positive correlation of spiritual well being with life satisfaction was found among middle aged people.This finding is consistent with the study conducted by Esa, et al. (2010).• Our results also revealed that there was insignificant difference in spiritual wellbeing, life satisfaction and depression among middle aged people as far their gender is concerned.This finding contradicts most of the studies which indicated that females tend to score higher on depression than males (Kessler, et al., 1994).A study that was conducted in Kashmir also revealed higher prevalence of depression among females (64.21%) than in males (68.64%) (Amin and Khan, 2009).

Description Of Tools: 1) Spiritual well being Scale: The
study was conducted on a sample of 100 middle aged people Spiritual wellbeing Scale (SWB) was used to gather data for the present study developed by Raymond,Paloutzian and Ellison (1982).The spiritual wellbeing scale (SWB) consist of 20 items, individually measured on a 6 -point likert scale, ranging from 'strongly agree' to 'strongly disagree'.

Table 6 Showing Comparison of Mean Scores of Spiritual wellbeing as for as gender of middle aged people is concerned
*P ≤ 0.05 level of significance

Table 6
shows that, there is insignificant difference in Spiritual Wellbeing as far as gender of middle aged people is concerned. .Thus our null hypothesis H 04 is accepted.

Table 7
shows that, there is no significant difference on life satisfaction as far as gender, education and income of middle aged people is concerned.Thus our null hypothesis H 05 is accepted.