The Well-Being of Unhoused Individuals in Transitional Housing: A qualitative exploration of stress, spirituality and religion, and purpose and meaning
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- This thesis examined how individuals who are unhoused experience stress, spirituality and religion, and purpose and meaning. Specifically, it sought to build upon a study comparing the well-being of unhoused and housed individuals. In this prior work, an innovative well-being measure—the Stanford WELL for Life Scale—was used to gather self-reported data about ten domains of well-being (social connectedness, lifestyle behaviors, physical health, stress and resilience, experience of emotions, purpose and meaning in life, sense of self, financial issues, spirituality and religion, and exploration and creativity). There were a number of unexpected findings in this prior research that warranted additional exploration, which forms the basis for this thesis. Specifically, no difference was found when comparing the well-being of the unhoused and the housed in terms of the self-reported stress scores and the purpose and meaning scores. The unhoused reported higher scores for the spirituality and religion domain. This thesis used qualitative data-gathering during three focus groups (n = 12) and a one-on-one interview (n = 1) with individuals who were unhoused. The recorded and transcribed data resulted in the identification of five thematic categories—purpose and meaning (which has three sub-codes: personal belief systems, motivation, and change over time); stressors; spirituality and religion; coping; and responsibilities. The sample of unhoused participants from this thesis proposed that unhoused and housed individuals experience different stressors, but not necessarily different levels of stress. A reliance on spirituality and religion as a coping mechanism for the unique stressors of being unhoused may have accounted for high levels of spirituality and religion levels from previous research. Motivation to become housed and personal belief systems such as accepting one’s situation, learning from the past, and focusing on what is good in life may have contributed to the findings in the previous research that there was no difference in purpose and meaning levels when comparing the sample of unhoused and matched housed participants. These findings have implications for improving the well-being of individuals who are unhoused and for future research in expanding our understanding of domains of well-being among these individuals.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Date created | June 2019 |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Shi, Robert |
|---|---|
| Primary advisor | Heaney, Catherine A. |
| Advisor | Winter, Sandra J. |
| Advisor | Rodriguez Espinosa, Patricia |
| Degree granting institution | Stanford University, Department of Medicine |
Subjects
| Subject | Community Health and Prevention Research |
|---|---|
| Subject | WELL for Life |
| Subject | well-being |
| Subject | focus group |
| Subject | one-on-one interview |
| Subject | unhoused well-being |
| Subject | homeless well-being |
| Subject | housed well-being |
| Subject | transitional housing |
| Subject | stress |
| Subject | spirituality and religion |
| Subject | purpose and meaning |
| Subject | unhoused stress |
| Subject | unhoused spirituality and religion |
| Subject | unhoused purpose and meaning |
| Subject | homeless stress |
| Subject | homeless spirituality and religion |
| Subject | homeless purpose and meaning |
| Genre | Thesis |
Bibliographic information
Access conditions
- Use and reproduction
- User agrees that, where applicable, content will not be used to identify or to otherwise infringe the privacy or confidentiality rights of individuals. Content distributed via the Stanford Digital Repository may be subject to additional license and use restrictions applied by the depositor.
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (CC BY).
Preferred citation
- Preferred Citation
- Shi, Robert. (2019). The Well-Being of Unhoused Individuals in Transitional Housing: A qualitative exploration of stress, spirituality and religion, and purpose and meaning. Stanford Digital Repository. Available at: https://purl.stanford.edu/rc209ks8596
Collection
Community Health and Prevention Research (CHPR) Master of Science Theses
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- Contact
- robertshi@alumni.stanford.edu
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