Abstract
Introduction: Religion can become a strategy to bring meaning to an elderly person's life, significantly enhancing life experience, allowing people to adopt a new attitude, as well as new emotions, learning, maintaining roles in society, and therefore adding all of these to the general quality of life. Methods: This integrative literature review is an investigation about the relationship between religiosity and quality of life (QOL) in the elderly. This research took place during the months of May-July 2011 and investigated databases from PubMed, Embase, the Virtual Health Library (Lilacs, Medline, and Scielo), theses and dissertations from the Coordination of Improvement of Higher Education in Brazil (CAPES). Results: A total of 94 studies were identified, of which only 15 met our inclusion criteria. The research types were cross-sectional studies (80%), longitudinal studies (6.66%), focal groups (6.66%) and interventional study with no control group (6.66%). In 86.7% of the studies (n = 13), a positive association between religion and QOL was found; that is, the greater the religious involvement, the better the QOL in various spheres of life. Participants in these studies were less likely to complain of physical conditions, depression, and anxiety. Religious beliefs and practices helped them to cope with depression by increasing sociability, comfort, and strength through faith and belief in God. Among the 15 studies, two reported no association. Conclusion: Additional studies of religious intervention on QOL in aged people are needed to understand better this relationship and establish the causal direction of these associations.