Mixed Blessings? Religion/Spirituality Predicts Better and Worse Screening Behaviours

Religious and Spiritual Coping Elements in Dealing with Chronic Diseases: A Qualitative Exploration of the Perspectives of Older Iranian Zoroastrians

Religiosity is a desirable alternative coping strategy for many people when facing negative life events including age-related infirmities and stressors. Religious coping mechanisms (RCMs) have been investigated meagerly with regard to religious minorities around the world and, to the best of current knowledge, no study has been conducted on Iranian Zorostrians to explore their religious coping mechanisms in dealing with age-related chronic diseases. This qualitative research, therefore, was aimed to canvas perceptions about RCMs that are utilized by Iranian Zoroastrian older adults to deal with chronic diseases in the city of Yazd, Iran. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with purposefully selected fourteen Zoroastrian older patients and four Zoroastrian priests in 2019. The main extracted themes included performing certain religious behaviors and having sincere religion-based beliefs as employed mechanisms for better coping with their chronic diseases. Prevalent dilemmas/barriers with mitigating impact on the coping capacities in dealing with a persistent illness was another predominant identified theme. Identification of RCMs that religious and ethnic minorities are using to better confront diverse life events, such as chronic diseases, could pave the path to expand new approaches in planing sustainable disease management and proactive quality of life improvement initiatives.

Fishing in a Puddle of Doubt and Disbelief?: A Rejoinder to the Speed et al. Commentary

In the article "Religiously/Spiritually Involved, but in Doubt or Disbelief-Why? Healthy?", Mrdjenovich (in J Relig Health  https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-018-0711-2 , 2018) explored the practices of religious attendance and prayer among atheists and agnostic theists. Speed et al. (in J Relig Health https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-020-01109-1 , 2020) offered a commentary regarding Mrdjenovich's (2018) article with attention to moderators of associations between religious/spiritual constructs and health outcomes. In this rejoinder, I review Speed et al.'s (2020) commentary and I identify a number of concerns, both with their observations and ostensive oversights involving qualitative research methodology, the utility of survey data, the domain of belief, and the impact of calls for a pluralistic approach in the religion-heath research field. I conclude that Mrdjenovich does not misunderstand mechanisms of the (non)religion-health relationship as much as Speed et al. seem to misinterpret Mrdjenovich's (2018) purpose, perspective, and default position on the issues. I reiterate that a concerted effort is required to study health outcomes among religious minorities.

The association between religiosity, spirituality, and breast cancer screening: A cross-sectional analysis of Alberta’s Tomorrow Project

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Religion and spirituality provide a foundation for regulating health behaviors such as cancer screening.

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However, religion and spirituality were not associated with mammography in a population-level sample of women from Alberta, Canada.

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Religion and spirituality may be associated with mammography in population subgroups.

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Future research should employ longitudinal analyses.

Breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related mortality among women. Screening permits the early detection and treatment of malignancies, thereby reducing mortality. A woman’s religiosity and spirituality (R/S) may facilitate screening through encouragement of healthy behaviors. Population-level data from Alberta’s Tomorrow Project (ATP) were used to explore the cross-sectional association between R/S and breast cancer screening among women aged 50 to 69 years who did not have a history of breast cancer. Two variables were used to measure R/S: (1) R/S Salience was defined as the importance of religion and spirituality in one’s life; (2) R/S Attendance was defined as the frequency of attendance at religious or spiritual services. We regressed breast cancer screening (mammogram: yes/no) on each R/S variable in separate multivariable logistic regression models. At baseline (n = 2569), 94% of women reported receiving a mammogram. Greater R/S Salience was not associated with receipt of mammogram: the adjusted odds ratio (aOR) was 1.04 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.71–1.51. R/S Attendance also showed no association with mammogram: attending at least once monthly versus never attending (aOR: 1.10; 95% CI: 0.71–1.69); attending one to four times yearly versus never attending (aOR: 0.95, 95% CI: 0.57–1.58). Further research could examine specific subgroups of the population, e.g., whether use of R/S to promote breast cancer screening may be more effective among females with strong pre-existing connections to faith.

Godless in the Great White North: Assessing the Health of Canadian Atheists Using Data from the 2011/2012 Canadian Community Health Survey

An overlooked reason to study atheism and health is that it provides a reasonably strong test of the broader religion-health relationship. Using data from the 2011/2012 Canadian Community Health Survey (n > 8000) I explored the health differences between atheists and eight categories of religious identities (nonreligious, Anglican, Baptist, Christian, Protestant, Catholic, United Church, and All Others). Surprisingly, results showed no substantive differences between atheists and non-atheists for self-rated health, emotional well-being, and psychological well-being. In contrast, results showed substantive and consistent differences between atheists and non-atheists with respect to social well-being. Results appear to suggest that while religious groups report superior scores on health proxies relative to atheists, this does not translate into substantive health differences.

Religiosity Level and Mammography Performance Among Arab and Jewish Women in Israel

This study compared mammography performance by religiosity level among Arab (weighted n = 103,347) and Jewish women (weighted n = 757,956) in Israel aged 50-74, using data from the 2017 National Social Survey of the Central Bureau of Statistics. In the Survey, women were asked regarding mammogram performance in the 2 years prior. Mammography performance was 78.2% among Jewish women and 64.8% among Arab women. Among Jewish women, self-identifying as "Very religious" and "Somewhat religious" was associated with lower mammography performance compared to being 'non-religious.' The association was in the opposite direction among Arab women. When tailoring interventions to increase mammography performance among ethnically diverse groups, planners should consider women's religiosity.

Religious Attendance and Cancer Screening Behavior

Background: Cancer is one of the most important health problems worldwide. Preventive examinations proved to be effective in tackling that issue, but their degree of utilization is not adequate. Thus, research is making efforts to reveal its determinants. It has been shown that religion is associated with several health outcomes, so the aim of our study is to analyze the association between religious attendance and participation in cancer prevention.

Methods: Data are derived from the fifth wave of the German Aging Survey (DEAS), a nationally representative, prospective cohort study. Participants are community-dwelling Germans aged 40 years and older. Our main independent variable is the frequency of attendance in religious services, and the dependent variable is participation in cancer screening. As covariates, we include factors from all the dimensions of the Andersen behavioral health services utilization model. Multiple logistic regressions were used. In our sensitivity analysis, logistic regressions were performed stratified by religious group (Roman Catholic church, Protestant church, not belonging to any religious group).

Results: Our model shows that attendance in religious services once a week, one to three times a month, several times a year, or less often is significantly associated with an increased likelihood of participating in preventive cancer screening, more than never participating in religious services. Moreover, the sensitivity analysis reveals that all these associations remain significant for the Catholic subsample, but not for the Protestant or the non-religious group.

Discussion: This study finds a link between a higher frequency of attendance in religious services and an increased likelihood of participating in cancer screenings. This is important to address individuals at risk for underuse of cancer screenings.

With a little help from my (Canadian) friends: Health differences between minimal and maximal religiosity/spirituality are partially mediated by social support

RATIONALE

Higher levels of religion and spirituality (R/S) are associated with better health in both Canadian and American samples. One mechanism that can account forthis relationship is social support, which is positively associated with higher R/S and is positively associated with overall wellness. Although social support has been found to mediate the relationship between R/S and health in American samples, parallel research on Canadian samples is lacking.

OBJECTIVE

While having cultural similarities, Canada and the United States have noteworthy differences with respect to religion, politics, and demographics. Consequently, it is problematic to assume that social support accounts for the R/Shealth relationship for Canadians. The goal of the current study was to explore whether social support mediated the relationship between R/S and health outcomes.

METHOD

Using individuals ≥20 years of age from the 2012 Canadian Community Health Survey - Mental Health component (N ≥ 9043), we isolated people who had either the lowest or highest possible score on a composite measure of R/S. We then compared 'minimal R/S' respondents to 'maximal R/S' respondents on 11 health outcomes and investigated if these health disparities attenuated when accounting for differences in social support.

RESULTS

Maximal R/S was associated with better health for nine of the tested outcomes, but seven of these relationships were attenuated when social support was added to the model. The two remaining outcomes, drug abuse/dependence and alcohol abuse/dependence, were not significantly impacted by the inclusion of social support.

CONCLUSION

Social support plays a mediating role in many R/S-health relationships for Canadians. Although R/S appears to have a statistical relationship with many health outcomes, several of these lack practical significance.

Does transpersonal trust moderate the association between chronic conditions and general practitioner visits in the oldest old? Results of the AgeCoDe and AgeQualiDe study

AIM

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether transpersonal trust (TPT) moderates the relationship between chronic conditions and general practitioner (GP) visits among the oldest old in Germany.

METHODS

The multicenter prospective cohort Study on Needs, health service use, costs and health-related quality of life in a large sample of oldest old primary care patients (85+) (AgeQualiDe) was carried out. Individuals were recruited through GP offices at six study centers in Germany (follow-up wave 7). Primary care patients were aged ≥85 years (n = 861, mean age 89.0 years; range 85-100 years). The self-reported number of outpatient visits to the GP was used as the outcome measure. To explore religious and spiritual beliefs, the short form of the Transpersonal Trust scale was used. The presence or absence of 36 chronic conditions was recorded by the GP.

RESULTS

Multiple Poisson regressions showed that GP visits were positively associated with the number of chronic conditions (incidence rate ratio 1.03, P < 0.05). TPT moderated the relationship between chronic conditions and GP visits (incidence rate ratio 1.01, P < 0.05). The association between chronic conditions and GP visits was significantly more pronounced when TPT was high.

CONCLUSION

Our findings highlight the importance of TPT in the relationship between chronic conditions and GP visits. Future longitudinal studies are required to clarify this subject further. Geriatr Gerontol Int 2019; 19: 705-710.