Latent Class Analysis of Spiritual Well-Being: Age and Religious Attitudes and Experiences as Predictors

Abstract

This study uses latent classes of spiritual well-being using Latent Class Analysis (LCA) and investigates the predictive roles of age and religious attitudes and experiences. A sample of 5,705 adult participants aged 15-70, 3282 (57.5%) females, and 2423 (42.5%) males, respectively, was analyzed to identify distinct latent classes of spiritual well-being based on its eight indicators. The LCA model established the best number of latent classes using criteria such as the Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC) and Akaike Information Criterion (AIC), arriving at two separate classes. The elbow plot can also graphically determine an optimal number of diverse groups. After the LCA, logistic regression was employed to assess how age and religious attitudes and experiences predicted membership in these latent classes. The usual parameters of the logistic regression included odds ratios (OR), confidence intervals (CI), and significance levels, which is the p-value. The analysis has shown that older age was significantly related to a higher likelihood of being with the group of respondents who are in the "Spiritually Grounded Optimist" class (OR = 1.016, 95% CI: 1.012-1.020, p < 0.01), while moderately positive religious attitudes are in the membership of the "Spiritually Reflective Seeker" class (OR = 3.029, 95% CI: 2.709-3.386, p < 0.01). The above results feature how age and religious attitudes and experiences affect spiritual well-being. This research stresses the importance of the assessment of individual spiritual differences and making interventions more effective that address the varied spiritual needs of persons.