A Structural Modeling of Middle-aged Adults' Meaning in Life

Sun-Hee Jang; Soon-Ock Choi

doi:10.7475/kjan.2017.29.4.363

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Jang and Choi: A Structural Modeling of Middle-aged Adults' Meaning in Life

Original Article

Korean J Adult Nurs 2017;29(4):363-372.

Published online: 9 August 2017

DOI: https://doi.org/10.7475/kjan.2017.29.4.363

A Structural Modeling of Middle-aged Adults' Meaning in Life

Sun-Hee Jang, Ph.D., RN¹, Soon-Ock Choi, Ph.D., RN^2,

¹Department of Nursing, Changshin University, Changwon, Korea

²College of Nursing, Catholic University of Pusan, Busan, Korea

Corresponding author: Choi, Soon-Ock College of Nursing, Catholic University of Pusan, 57 Oryundae-ro, Geumjeong-gu, Busan 46252, Korea. Tel: +82-51-510-0726, Fax: +82-51-510-0747, E-mail: sochoi@cup.ac.kr

- This manuscript is based on a part of the first author's doctoral dissertation from Catholic University of Pusan.

Received 1 April 20175 July 2017 Accepted 26 August 2017

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of the study was to describe the structural relationship of meaning in life, spirituality, hope, intrinsic religious orientation, and self-esteem among middle-aged adults.

Methods

The sample included 344 participants between the ages of 40 and 60, who resided in one of four cities. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS 21.0, descriptive statistics and AMOS 20.0 which uses structural modeling to test whether the hypothesized model fits the collected data.

Results

Middle-aged adult's spirituality was found to have a significant direct effect on meaning in life. Further, middle-aged adult's reported hope, intrinsic religious orientation, and self-esteem had a direct effect on spirituality. Lastly, self-esteem had a direct effect on hope.

Conclusion

The findings from the study indicated that spirituality was the best predictor of meaning in life among middle age. In addition, hope, intrinsic religious orientation, and self-esteem did not have a direct effect on the meaning in life, but had a indirect effect through spirituality.

Keywords: Life, Spirituality, Hope, Religion

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Figure 1.

Conceptual framework.

Figure 2.

Path diagram of modified model.

Table 1.

Correlations and Average Variance Extracted among Measured Variables (N=344)

Latent variable	Observed variable	M±SD	Skewness	Kurtosis	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
Latent variable	Observed variable	M±SD	Skewness	Kurtosis	r (p)	r (p)	r (p)	r (p)	r (p)	r (p)	r (p)	r (p)
Self-esteem	1	3.80±0.55	-0.16	0.61	1.00
	2	3.55±0.60	-0.53	0.45	.86(＜.001)	1.00
	3	3.00±1.07	-0.12	0.29	.20(.001)	.17(.002)	1.00
	4	3.75±0.63	-0.00	-1.15	.73(＜.001)	.70(＜.001)	.25(＜.001)	1.00
Spirituality	5	3.30±0.62	-0.86	1.01	.71(＜.001)	.61(＜.001)	.35(＜.001)	.83(＜.001)	1.00
	6	3.83±0.56	-1.64	0.61	.49(＜.001)	.38(＜.001)	.22(＜.001)	.51(＜.001)	.55(＜.001)	1.00
Meaning in life	7	3.67±0.57	0.23	-0.32	.65(＜.001)	.55(＜.001)	.37(＜.001)	.78(＜.001)	.68(＜.001)	.51(＜.001)	1.00
	8	3.75±0.63	-0.81	2.92	.39(＜.001)	.19(.001)	.20(.001)	.57(＜.001)	.33(＜.001)	.48(＜.001)	.62(＜.001)	1.00
Average variance extracted (AVE)					-.16	.61	.60	.43	.46	.55	.67	.64

1=Positive; 2=Negative; 3=Intrinsic religious orientation; 4=Hope; 5=Vertical; 6=Horizontal; 7=Searching for meaning; 8=Presence of meaning.

Table 2.

Fitness Statistics for Hypothetical and Modified Model

Variables	Hypothetical model	Modified model
x²	65.30	41.85
df	12	13
GFI	.96	.97
AGFI	.87	.93
CFI	.95	.97
NFI	.94	.96
RMR	.01	.01
RMSEA	.11	.08

GFI=Goodness-of-Fit Index; AGFI=Adgusted Goodness of Fit Index; CFI=Comparative Fit Index; NFI=Normed Fit Index; RMR=Root Mean-Square Residual; RMSEA=Root Mean Square Error of Approximation.

Table 3.

Effects of Predictor Variables on Endogenous Variables for Modified Model

Endogenous variables	Predictor variables	Direct effect	Indirect effect	Total effect
Self-esteem	Hope	.69^∗∗∗	-	.69
Intrinsic religious orientation	Hope	.08	-	.08
Self-esteem	Spirituality	.52^∗∗∗	.26^∗∗	.78
Intrinsic religious orientation	Spirituality	.25^∗∗∗	.03^∗	.29
Hope	Spirituality	.38^∗∗∗	-	.38
Self-esteem	Meaning in life	-	.67^∗∗	.67
Intrinsic religious orientation	Meaning in life	-	.21^∗∗	.21
Hope	Meaning in life	.18	.26^∗∗	.45
Spirituality	Meaning in life	.69^∗∗∗	-	.69

^∗ p＜.05,

^∗∗ p＜.01,

^∗∗∗ p＜.001.

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