Well-being and belief in a just world among rest home residents
Several theorists have contended that belief in a just world may be one way elderly rest home residents cope with anxiety, fear, and depression and thus maintain their well-being. In this study we explored belief in a just world and length of time elderly have been residing in rest
homes in Lebanon in relation to their levels of self-rated quality of life. A sample of 354 cognitively able elderly people were selected from 36 nursing homes. Interview questionnaires including a translated and validated Self-beliefs in a Just World Scale (BJW-S; Lipkus, Dalbert, & Siegler,
1996) and the EuroQol Visual Analogue Scale (EQ-VAS; Brooks, 1996) that measures respondents' quality of life on a 20cm visual analogue scale. The relationship between Arabic BJW-S scores and length of stay measured on the EQ-VAS was examined using analysis of variance. The findings showed
significant main effects for belief in a just world on levels of EQ-VAS, but no significant effects of length of time in rest home on levels of EQ-VAS. Residents who had strong beliefs in a just world seem to have better abilities to cope with negative life events and better self-rated feelings
of well-being than did residents who did not believe the world was just and who rated their own well-being lower.
Keywords: BELIEF IN A JUST WORLD; ELDERLY; LENGTH OF STAY; REST HOME RESIDENTS; WELL-BEING
Document Type: Research Article
Publication date: 01 June 2011
- The Journal's core purpose is scientific communication in the disciplines of Social Psychology, Developmental and Personality Psychology
- Editorial Board
- Information for Authors
- Submit a Paper
- Subscribe to this Title
- Terms & Conditions
- Contact the Publisher
- Search
- Manuscript Guidelines
- Ingenta Connect is not responsible for the content or availability of external websites
- Access Key
- Free content
- Partial Free content
- New content
- Open access content
- Partial Open access content
- Subscribed content
- Partial Subscribed content
- Free trial content