Spirituality and Health in College Going Youths: An Empirical Investigation

In the recent times, psychologists and behavioral scientists have refocused their attention on the role of Spirituality and Religion on Health and other aspects of behavior. Human health is a multidimensional construct which is influenced by gamut of factors. Youths of any nation are important because they are the most potent and productive in their work. The healthy and well-functioning youths are assets to any system and organization. Involving in Spiritual activities is often associated with positive health and many positive behaviors. It becomes vital to investigate these variables in Indian context. The aim of the current paper was to examine Spirituality and Health in college going Youths. The main objectives of the current study were to (i) Examine Health among college going Boys (ii) Examine Spirituality among college going Girls (iii) Examine correlations between Health and Spirituality. A sample of 100 college going students from one of the Government Universities at Aligarh City were selected for the current study using convenient sampling method.The measures used were General Health Questionnaire-28 Item version- GHQ-28 ( GHQ-28, Goldberg & Hillier, 1979) and Spirituality Questionnaire, SQ-20item version(Hardt, Schultz, Xander, Becker &Dragan, 2012).The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics like mean, SD and inferential statistics like t test and correlational analysis was used to examine the relationships among the variables. The findings indicate an insignificant gender differences on the variables of Health and Spirituality, significant positive relationship between Spirituality and Health. The intercorelations among some of the Health subscales were significant and some were insignificant and similar results were obtained on Spirituality variable.. The study highlights the significance of spirituality as possible factor leading to positive health among college Youths and a need to train them in Spiritual oriented practices and interventions to enhance their health.