Rex Billington

Religion/spirituality and quality of life of international tertiary students in New Zealand: an exploratory study

Previous research links religion/spirituality to beneficial health outcomes, but the majority of these studies used samples from populations with long-term illness or older people. The present study explored whether the links between religion/spirituality and quality of life can be observed in a sample of younger adults, and also whether religion/spirituality could function as a coping mechanism in international tertiary students who are often subjected to significant stressors related to acculturation and being away from their families. The sample consisted of 218 domestic and 164 international students at a New Zealand university who were given the quality of life inventory and the additional special module about spirituality/religion/personal beliefs, both developed by the World Health Organization in collaboration with many member states. Religion/spirituality was significantly correlated with psychological quality of life in both groups, and social quality of life in international students. The results also show that religion/spirituality might function as a coping mechanism in international students in response to stressors of acculturation.

Stress and quality of life in international and domestic university students: cultural differences in the use of religious coping

Studying overseas entails a number of transitions and challenges, and the present study investigated the strategies international university students use to cope with stressors. Previous research suggests that international students may be more likely than domestic students to draw on religion/spirituality as a source of dealing with stress, but the direct links between stress, religious coping and quality of life are yet to be documented explicitly. A sample of 679 university students in New Zealand completed the quality of life scale WHOQOL-BREF with an additional WHOQOL module used to assess spiritual, religious, and personal beliefs (SRPB). The students also completed the Perceived Stress Scale and the Brief COPE inventory. Irrespective of stress levels encountered or whether participants were international or domestic students, Asian students were more likely to use religious coping strategies than European students. Unlike European students, Asian students’ use of religious coping was effective in improving psychological and social quality of life. The findings also provide support for the main effects hypothesis of religion/spirituality. The present study demonstrates that cultural factors play an important role in the manner in which individuals maintain mental health and quality of life.

How Religious Coping is Used Relative to Other Coping Strategies Depends on the Individual’s Level of Religiosity and Spirituality

Results from empirical studies on the role of religiosity and spirituality in dealing with stress are frequently at odds, and the present study investigated whether level of religiosity and spirituality is related to the way in which religious coping is used relative to other coping strategies. A sample of 616 university undergraduate students completed the Brief COPE (Carver in Int J Behav Med 4:92–100, 1997) questionnaire and was classified into groups of participants with lower and higher levels of religiosity and spirituality, as measured by the WHOQOL-SRPB (WHOQOL-SRPB Group in Soc Sci Med 62:1486–1497, 2006) instrument. For participants with lower levels, religious coping tended to be associated with maladaptive or avoidant coping strategies, compared to participants with higher levels, where religious coping was more closely related to problem-focused coping, which was also supported by multigroup confirmatory factor analysis. The results of the present study thus illustrate that investigating the role of religious coping requires more complex approaches than attempting to assign it to one higher order factor, such as problem- or emotion-focused coping, and that the variability of findings reported by previous studies on the function of religious coping may partly be due to variability in religiosity and spirituality across samples.

Noise sensitivity and diminished health: Testing moderators and mediators of the relationship

The concept of noise sensitivity emerged in public health and psychoacoustic research to help explain individual differences in reactions to noise. Noise sensitivity has been associated with health problems, but the mechanisms underlying this relationship have yet to be fully examined. Participants (n = 1102) were residents of Auckland, New Zealand, who completed questionnaires and returned them through the post. Models of noise sensitivity and health were tested in the analyses using bootstrapping methods to examine indirect effects. Results indicated that gender and noise exposure were not significant moderators in the model. Perceived stress and sleep problems were significant mediators of the relationship between noise sensitivity and subjective health complaints, even after controlling for the influence of neuroticism. However, the relationship between noise sensitivity and mental health complaints (anxiety and depression) was accounted for by the variance explained by neuroticism. Overall, this study provides considerable understanding of the relationship between noise sensitivity and health problems and identifies areas for further research in the field.

Mitigating the Acoustic Impacts of Modern Technologies Acoustic, Health, and Psychosocial Factors Informing Wind Farm Placement

Wind turbine noise is annoying and has been linked to increased levels of psychological distress, stress, difficulty falling asleep, and sleep interruption. For these reasons, there is a need for competently designed noise standards to safeguard community health and well-being. The authors identify key considerations for the development of wind turbine noise standards, which emphasize a more social and humanistic approach to the assessment of new energy technologies in society.

Access to New Zealand Sign Language interpreters and quality of life for the deaf: a pilot study

Purpose. This paper aims to: (1) explore usage and accessibility of sign language interpreters, (2) appraise the levels of quality of life (QOL) of deaf adults residing in New Zealand, and (3) consider the impact of access to and usage of sign language interpreters on QOL. Method. Sixty-eight deaf adults living in New Zealand participated in this study. Two questionnaires were employed: a 12-item instrument about access and use of New Zealand sign language interpreters and the abbreviated version of the World Health Organization Quality of Life questionnaire (WHOQOL-BREF). Results. The results showed that 39%% of this sample felt that they were unable to adequately access interpreting services. Moreover, this group scored significantly lower than a comparable hearing sample on all four WHOQOL-BREF domains. Finally, the findings revealed that access to good quality interpreters were associated with access to health services, transport issues, engagement in leisure activities, gaining more information, mobility and living in a healthy environment. Conclusions. These findings have consequences for policy makers and agencies interested in ensuring that there is an equitable distribution of essential services for all groups within New Zealand which inevitably has an impact on the health of the individual.

Rasch analysis of the Perceived Stress Scale: Transformation from an ordinal to a linear measure:

Rasch analysis was conducted to enhance the precision of the widely used 10-item Perceived Stress Scale using two datasets (n = 450 each) randomly selected from samples of the New Zealand general population (n = 1102), New Zealand university students (n = 479) and US university students (n = 396). The best Rasch model fit (χ2(27) = 29.92, p = .36), good person separation reliability (.80) and coverage (98%) of the sample by the scale items were achieved when locally dependent items were combined into subtests. These findings support reliability and internal structural validity of the 10-item Perceived Stress Scale. The instrument precision can be further improved using the ordinal-to-linear conversion tables published here.

What New Zealanders find important to their quality of life: comparisons with international WHOQOL data from 14 other countries

Objective: When the World Health Organization Quality of Life tools were developed by 15 collaborating centres in 14 countries, respondents rated how important they considered various facets of health‐related quality of life. The present study compared quality of life importance ratings from New Zealanders with the global data collected 17 years earlier. Possible differences by gender and age were also explored.