Death Anxiety, Religious Doubt, and Depressive Symptoms across Race in Older Adults

Kelcie D. Willis, Tamara Nelson and Oswaldo Moreno
Additional contact information
Kelcie D. Willis: Department of Psychology, Virginia Commonwealth University, 806 West Franklin Street Box 842018, Richmond, VA 23284, USA
Tamara Nelson: Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, Brown University, Providence, RI 02906, USA
Oswaldo Moreno: Department of Psychology, Virginia Commonwealth University, 806 West Franklin Street Box 842018, Richmond, VA 23284, USA

IJERPH, 2019, vol. 16, issue 19, 1-14

Abstract: The purpose of this study is to investigate the direct and indirect relationships among death anxiety, religious doubt, and depressive symptoms in older adults. This study also investigates race as a moderator for these relationships. This study used data from the Religion, Aging, and Health Survey. Participants identified as Christian, identified as Black or White, lived in a non-institutionalized household within the U.S., were retired, and spoke English. Using PROCESS, results revealed that religious doubt partially mediated the relationship between death anxiety and depressive symptoms. Furthermore, moderated mediation models revealed that race moderated the relationship between religious doubt and depressive symptoms. Specifically, there was significant, positive relationship between religious doubt and depressive symptoms for participants who identified as Black but not White. Results highlight how religious doubt can influence depressive outcomes among the geriatric communities of color. Limitations and future directions are also discussed.

Keywords: death anxiety; religious doubt; depression; race; aging (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/19/3645/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/19/3645/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:16:y:2019:i:19:p:3645-:d:271727

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().