Forschungsprojekt ::

Aspects of spirituality and life satisfaction in persons with Down syndrome

Projektbeschreibung

The project focuses on empirical analyses of specific aspects of spirituality and life satisfaction in persons with Down Syndrome. However, we do not know much about the dimensions of importance in the life of persons with DS and their underlying spirituality. One reason might be that researchers may consider that these issues a require high level of cognitive intelligence, because spirituality/religiosity is mostly regarded as a matter of cognitive understanding of theoretical doctrines, belief issues, and construction of meaning systems, etc.. Our research is intended to identify emotional and behavioral aspects of spirituality that might be of importance to them.

We aimed to address (1) which aspects of spirituality (operationalized as connectedness with and turning to others, conscious awareness, feelings of gratitude and awe, and also religious issues) are of relevance for persons with DS, (2) putative differences with respect to gender, and (3) associations with life satisfaction and parental status (living with or without their parents).