Moderating effect of religiosity on the relationship between social isolation and psychological well-being

It is known that social isolation is negatively associated to psychological well-being. Hence, it is imperative to identify factors that may moderate this association. This study aimed to examine the moderating effect of religiosity on the relationship between social isolation and psychological well-being among a sample of 1415 community-dwelling older Malay Muslims age 60 years and over. The data for this study came from a national survey entitled Patterns of Social Relationship and Psychological Well Being among Older Persons in Peninsular Malaysia, which was conducted using a cross-sectional research design. Three scales namely WHO-5 Well being Index, Revised Intrinsic Extrinsic Religiosity Scale, and Lubben Social Network Scale were utilised to measure psychological well-being, religiosity, and social isolation, respectively. A four-step moderated hierarchical regression analysis using SPSS (version-13) was employed to test moderating effect of religiosity. The results of this study demonstrated that ...