Clergy as mental health service providers to older adults.
Older adults tend to seek help for emotional problems from clergy at greater rates than they do from other sources. However, their help-seeking from clergy is largely understudied. We used data from the Naturally Occurring Retirement Community (NORC) Demonstration Project to examine older adults' patterns of help-seeking from clergy. We studied a sample of adults aged 65 or older (n = 317) to determine which factors were related to help-seeking from a religious leader. This study was framed within the Behavioral Model of Health Services Utilization. Results of hierarchical logistic regression analyses indicated that having less social support and greater frequency of attendance at religious services was related to help-seeking from clergy for this sample, while other predisposing, enabling, need and religiosity variables were not found to be related to help-seeking from clergy. Discussion focuses on the need for mental health workers to be aware of the important role that clergy play in service provision and to find ways to leverage knowledge and skills to enhance provider-clergy relationships in order to improve services that older adults receive.
School of Social Work, University of Missouri-St Louis, Saint Louis, MO, USA. pickardj@umsl.edu
Joseph G
JG
Pickard
Baorong
B
Guo
D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002977:Clergy / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D003376:Counseling; D005260:Female; D006301:Health Services Needs and Demand; D006299:Health Services for the Aged / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008605:Mental Health Services / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D008923:Missouri; D012112:Residential Facilities; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014481:United States; D000078329:Workforce