Religious Engagement and Successful Aging among Korean Older Adults
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The instrument needs clarity.
The results section needs basic data analysis mention. the data cleaning process is not mentioned. No mention about missing values.
Results and Discussion is mixed up. it lacks clarity to reader.
Author Response
The instrument needs clarity.
As suggested, we have added the instrument information mentioned above.
The results section needs basic data analysis mention. the data cleaning process is not mentioned. No mention about missing values.
As suggested, we have added the basic data analysis mentioned above.
Results and Discussion is mixed up. it lacks clarity to reader.
As suggested, we have clarified results and discussion section.
Reviewer 2 Report
The article analyzes important aspects of life satisfaction in the elderly based on the theoretical model ( Rowe and Kahn’s model) coherent with the study design.
Can be improve the section of Methods:
In the section 3.1. Participants, the authors should made a description of the sociodemographic characteristics of the participants (mean age, Marital status, Education) - they only mention the gender of the participants.
In the section 3.3. Measures, it is suggested to identify the scales of measures that were used to assess the different variables.
Author Response
The article analyzes important aspects of life satisfaction in the elderly based on the theoretical model (Rowe and Kahn’s model) coherent with the study design.
Can be improve the section of Methods:
In the section 3.1. Participants, the authors should made a description of the sociodemographic characteristics of the participants (mean age, Marital status, Education) - they only mention the gender of the participants.
As suggested, we have added the sample information mentioned above.
In the section 3.3. Measures, it is suggested to identify the scales of measures that were used to assess the different variables.
As suggested, we have added the scales of measures.
Reviewer 3 Report
This topic is significant in terms of religious engagement with older Korean people. Older people are likely to be engaging in religious practices at a higher rate, and so I believe this is a valuable topic for the journal. The authors nicely outline successful aging theory (Rowe & Kahn, 1997) that is relevant to this study and to the goals of many aging researchers.
I would recommend the authors edit some of their language choice and discussion of aging as a social problem in it of itself. For example, in the first line of the abstract, the authors write, “it is widely acknowledged that a fast rate of aging is a global social problem.” I would argue the fast rate of aging is not a social problem it in of itself, but the way society is not prepared to support this change. Additionally, many researchers writing in the English language have attempted to “reframe aging” by using “older adults,” “older people, and “elders” rather than “elderly,” “aged,” or “seniors.” If you want more information on reframing aging, I would suggest the “quick start guide,” found at https://www.reframingaging.org/Resources/Useful-Tools. I am not associated with this initiative, but I have found it helpful personally.
I found the alignment of both tables a bit hard to read. For example, Table 1 has the first column centered, and the reader could benefit from a left alignment to better see all the variables.
It also looks like the note itself was incorrect because the correlations marked with stars don’t seem significant (e.g., disability status and exercise would be significantly correlated). I would take a look at the tables and make sure you’ve marked the ones that are significant rather than the ones that are irrelevant.
I also think it’s critical to address in your introduction and/or discussion why religious engagement does not necessarily fit under social life or psychological well-being. For example, religious engagement often contains a social element, and the beliefs themselves are psychologically protective (e.g., death anxiety or existential concerns). So, why is it important for the reader to delineate religious engagement when it may fall under other aspects of healthy aging?
Author Response
This topic is significant in terms of religious engagement with older Korean people. Older people are likely to be engaging in religious practices at a higher rate, and so I believe this is a valuable topic for the journal. The authors nicely outline successful aging theory (Rowe & Kahn, 1997) that is relevant to this study and to the goals of many aging researchers.
I would recommend the authors edit some of their language choice and discussion of aging as a social problem in it of itself. For example, in the first line of the abstract, the authors write, “it is widely acknowledged that a fast rate of aging is a global social problem.” I would argue the fast rate of aging is not a social problem it in of itself, but the way society is not prepared to support this change. Additionally, many researchers writing in the English language have attempted to “reframe aging” by using “older adults,” “older people, and “elders” rather than “elderly,” “aged,” or “seniors.” If you want more information on reframing aging, I would suggest the “quick start guide,” found at https://www.reframingaging.org/Resources/Useful-Tools. I am not associated with this initiative, but I have found it helpful personally.
As suggested, we have revised the sentence and term mentioned above.
I found the alignment of both tables a bit hard to read. For example, Table 1 has the first column centered, and the reader could benefit from a left alignment to better see all the variables.
It also looks like the note itself was incorrect because the correlations marked with stars don’t seem significant (e.g., disability status and exercise would be significantly correlated). I would take a look at the tables and make sure you’ve marked the ones that are significant rather than the ones that are irrelevant.
As suggested, we have reformatted Tables and corrected the marking of correlations.
I also think it’s critical to address in your introduction and/or discussion why religious engagement does not necessarily fit under social life or psychological well-being. For example, religious engagement often contains a social element, and the beliefs themselves are psychologically protective (e.g., death anxiety or existential concerns). So, why is it important for the reader to delineate religious engagement when it may fall under other aspects of healthy aging?
As suggested, we have added the discussion mentioned above.
Reviewer 4 Report
Thank you for the opportunity to review the manuscript entitled, “Religious Engagement and Successful Aging among Korean elderly adults.”
Below I provide my overall impressions followed by more specific comments.
OVERALL COMMENTS:
1. This manuscript draws attention to an important topic in aging, religious engagement.
2. Parts of this manuscript could be strengthened. For example, including more details on measures used including religious engagement and in the results section are needed.
3. The authors did a good job identifying relevant research to support this study. Some areas need additional citations.
SPECIFIC COMMENTS:
1. Abstract line 10. I would avoid “it” and simply state “authors utilized or we utilized”
2. I would recommend moving away from words such as “elderly” to a more socially accepted version, “older adult(s)”. This is a recommendation promoted by the international society on gerontology (Gerontological Society of America).
3. Page 2, lines 68-70. These last two sentences need to be summarized together or aligned as it seems authors are proposing one study objective then suggest a second objective in the following sentence. This needs to be clearer for the reader and will strengthen this manuscript.
4. Support statements with citations. For example, page 2 lines 77-78. There is no citation for this sentence stating, “literature includes religiosity…”. Pg 3 lines 98-101, etc.
5. The manuscript could be strengthened with some general grammatical editing. For example, pg 3 line 82, “researches.”
6. The measures section is limited in reporting each measure with a thorough description. This section needs more details to strengthen this manuscript. In it’s present form, this is a large limitation for this study. Higher versus lower numbers for each measure need to be given as well in order to interpret results.
7. Results. This is a very brief results section. More details are needed to strengthen this study. For example, reporting confidence intervals is recommended in addition to p values.
8. Page 7. Lines 268-271. Psychological well-being matters more than physical health for what? It is unclear what authors are stating here. On quality of life?
9. This study idea is similar to a publication on adding spirituality as another domain of Kahn and Rowe’s Successful Aging Model. Authors may want to strengthen their manuscript by making reference to this.
Crowther MR, Parker MW, Achenbaum WA, Larimore WL, Koenig HG. Rowe and Kahn's model of successful aging revisited: positive spirituality--the forgotten factor. Gerontologist. 2002;42(5):613-620. doi:10.1093/geront/42.5.613
Author Response
OVERALL COMMENTS:
- This manuscript draws attention to an important topic in aging, religious engagement.
- Parts of this manuscript could be strengthened. For example, including more details on measures used including religious engagement and in the results section are needed.
As suggested, we have added more detailed information on instrument information
and results section mentioned above.
- The authors did a good job identifying relevant research to support this study. Some areas need additional citations.
As suggested, we have added the additional citations.
SPECIFIC COMMENTS:
- Abstract line 10. I would avoid “it” and simply state “authors utilized or we utilized”
As suggested, we have revised the sentence mentioned above.
- I would recommend moving away from words such as “elderly” to a more socially accepted version, “older adult(s)”. This is a recommendation promoted by the international society on gerontology (Gerontological Society of America).
As suggested, we have revised the term mentioned above.
- Page 2, lines 68-70. These last two sentences need to be summarized together or aligned as it seems authors are proposing one study objective then suggest a second objective in the following sentence. This needs to be clearer for the reader and will strengthen this manuscript.
As suggested, we have revised the sentence mentioned above.
- Support statements with citations. For example, page 2 lines 77-78. There is no citation for this sentence stating, “literature includes religiosity…”. Pg 3 lines 98-101, etc.
As suggested, we have added the citations mentioned above.
- The manuscript could be strengthened with some general grammatical editing. For example, pg 3 line 82, “researches.”
As suggested, we have revised the sentence mentioned above.
- The measures section is limited in reporting each measure with a thorough description. This section needs more details to strengthen this manuscript. In it’s present form, this is a large limitation for this study. Higher versus lower numbers for each measure need to be given as well in order to interpret results.
As suggested, we have added the instrument information mentioned above.
- This is a very brief results section. More details are needed to strengthen this study. For example, reporting confidence intervals is recommended in addition to p values.
As suggested, we have added the more information in the results section.
- Page 7. Lines 268-271. Psychological well-being matters more than physical health for what? It is unclear what authors are stating here. On quality of life?
As suggested, we have revised the sentence mentioned above.
- This study idea is similar to a publication on adding spirituality as another domain of Kahn and Rowe’s Successful Aging Model. Authors may want to strengthen their manuscript by making reference to this.
Crowther MR, Parker MW, Achenbaum WA, Larimore WL, Koenig HG. Rowe and Kahn's model of successful aging revisited: positive spirituality--the forgotten factor. Gerontologist. 2002;42(5):613-620. doi:10.1093/geront/42.5.613
As suggested, we have added the reference mentioned above.
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
My suggestions have been addressed.
Author Response
Thank you for your suggestions. We have done spell check in the manuscript.
