Changes in Spirituality and Well-Being among Victims of Sexual Assault

Abstract

Seventy, predominately inner-city, minority women who had been sexually assaulted in the previous 9 to 24 months filled out a questionnaire that included measures of change in well-being and change in the role of spirituality in their lives since the assault. Sixty percent of the victims indicated an increased role for spirituality. Changes in spirituality correlated .54 with changes in well-being. The victims with increased spirituality appeared to have restored well-being, whereas those without increased spirituality continued to have significantly depressed well-being. Although this study cannot provide convincing evidence for the causal mechanisms for these results, a model of compensating reciprocal causation between spirituality and well-being following traumatic events merits further study because it explains both the relatively high correlation in this study and the low correlations in cross-sectional studies of well-being and spirituality. With this model, a traumatic event causes reduced well- being, which causes increased spirituality, which then helps restore well-being to pre-event levels.