The Examination of Structural Relationships Between Hardiness and Life Satisfaction in Older Adults Through Mediating Religious Commitment

Introduction: With the increase of the elderly in the current era, mental health specialists have always looked for psychological sources to improve the quality of life of the elderly. So, the present study aimed to analyze the structural relationships between the psychological hardiness and life satisfaction of the elderly with the mediating role of religious commitment. Methods: The design of this research is descriptive of correlational and basic in terms of purpose. In this study, hardiness was considered as an exogenous variable, life satisfaction as an endogenous variable and religious commitment as an intermediate variable. The number of samples was estimated to be 381 people according to the population of the statistical population of elderly retirees in Gilan province and referring to Morgan table, and by single-stage cluster sampling. The research instruments included the Worthington Religious Commitment Inventory-10, the Wood, Wylie, and Sheafor’s Life Satisfaction Index Z, and the Ahwaz Hardiness Inventory. For data analysis, Pearson correlation coefficient and structural equation modeling were used with version 22 of SPSS and AMOS software. Results: Results revealed that hardiness has no significant increasing effect on life satisfaction and religious commitment (P<0/05), whereas satisfaction was significantly increased with an increase in religious commitment (P<0/01). As the effect of the independent variable was not significant on the mediating variable, the mediating role of religious commitment is not confirmed. Conclusions: Based on these results, it can be said that by strengthening religious commitment, it is possible to increase life satisfaction in order to improve mental well-being in the elderly.