Religious affiliation and psychiatric disorder among Protestant baby boomers

Prayer, Meditation, and Anxiety: Durkheim Revisited

Durkheim argued that religion’s emphasis on the supernatural combined with its unique ability to foster strong collective bonds lent it power to confer distinctive social benefits. Subsequent research has confirmed these propositions with respect to religion and mental health. At the same time, meditation has been linked to mental health benefits in intervention-based studies. Our investigation offers a unique test of two comparable inhibitors of anxiety-related symptoms in the general population, namely, prayer versus meditation. Using data from the 2010 wave of the Baylor Religion Survey, we find that frequent communal prayer is correlated with an increased incidence of anxiety-related symptoms whereas worship service attendance is negatively associated with reported anxiety. Attendance also combines with communal prayer to yield anxiety-reducing benefits. Meditation, measured as a dichotomous indicator, is unrelated to reported anxiety in our sample of American adults. Our study underscores the selective efficacy of collective forms of religious expression, and points to several promising directions for future research.

Measuring Multiple Dimensions of Religion and Spirituality for Health Research

Progress in studying the relationship between religion and health has been hampered by the absence of an adequate measure of religiousness and spirituality. This article reports on the conceptual and empirical development of an instrument to measure religiousness and spirituality, intended explicitly for studies of health. It is multidimensional to allow investigation of multiple possible mechanisms of effect, brief enough to be included in clinical or epidemiological surveys, inclusive of both traditional religiousness and noninstitutionally based spirituality, and appropriate for diverse Judeo-Christian populations. The measure may be particularly useful for studies of health in elderly populations in which religious involvement is higher. The measure was tested in the nationally representative 1998 General Social Survey ( N = 1,445). Nine dimensions have indices with moderate-to-good internal consistency, and there are three single-item domains. Analysis by age and sex shows that elderly respondents report higher levels of religiousness in virtually every domain of the measure.

Religiosity and Mental Health Service Utilization Among African-Americans

African-Americans are approximately half as likely as their white counterparts to use professional mental health services. High levels of religiosity among African-Americans may lend to a greater reliance on religious counseling and coping when facing a mental health problem. This study investigates the relationship between three dimensions of religiosity and professional mental health service utilization among a large (n = 3570), nationally representative sample of African-American adults. African-American adults who reported high levels of organizational and subjective religiosity were less likely than those with lower levels of religiosity to use professional mental health services. This inverse relationship was generally consistent across individuals with and without a diagnosable Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th Edition, anxiety, mood, or substance use disorder. No association was found between nonorganizational religiosity and professional mental health service use. Seeking professional mental health care may clash with sociocultural religious norms and values among African-Americans. Strategic efforts should be made to engage African-American clergy and religious communities in the conceptualization and delivery of mental health services.

Depression and the medicalization of sadness: conceptualization and recommended help-seeking

BACKGROUND

Critiques of the validity of the DSM diagnostic criteria for depressive disorder argue that it fails to differentiate between abnormal sadness due to internal dysfunction or depression (sadness without an identifiable cause), and normal sadness (sadness with a clear cause).

AIMS

and

METHODS

A population survey was undertaken in adult education centres in Spain aiming to explore beliefs about depression and normal sadness. Two hypothetical case vignettes portrayed individuals experiencing deep sadness, both fulfilling criteria for major depressive disorder (DSM-IV), one with a clear cause, the other without an identifiable cause. Three hundred and forty-four (344) questionnaires were obtained (95% response rate).

RESULTS

Participants statistically significantly differentiated between the sadness-with-cause vignette, seen more frequently as a normal response, while the one without a cause was seen as pathological. Help-seeking behaviour recommendations followed this distinction: a medical option was statistically significantly more common when there was no cause for sadness. Socio-cultural variation in how people understand and deal with sadness was also found.

CONCLUSIONS

This study emphasizes the importance of taking into account the context in which depressive symptoms occur as it seems that the absence of an appropriate context is what makes people conceptualize them as abnormal. It also raises questions about the lack of face validity of the current diagnostic classification for depressive disorder that exclusively uses descriptive criteria.

Religious involvement and DSM-IV 12-month and lifetime major depressive disorder among African Americans

This study explores relationships between lifetime and 12-month DSM-IV major depressive disorder and religious involvement within a nationally representative sample of African American adults (n = 3,570). MDD was assessed using the DSM-IV World Mental Health Composite International Diagnostic Interview. Multivariate findings indicate that reading religious materials were positively associated with 12-month (odds ratio [OR], 1.14; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.001-1.29) and lifetime (OR, 1.12; 95% CI, 1.03-1.21) MDD, religious service attendance was inversely associated with 12-month and lifetime MDD, and religious coping was inversely associated with 12-month MDD (OR, 0.75, 95% CI, 0.57-0.99). Findings are discussed in relation to the role of religion for African American mental health, prior research on the effects of religious involvement on physical and mental health, and theoretical and conceptual models of religion-health connections that specify multiple and often divergent pathways (e.g., prevention and resource mobilization) by which diverse forms of religious involvement impact mental health.

Religious and spiritual factors in depression: review and integration of the research

Depressive symptoms and religious/spiritual (R/S) practices are widespread around the world, but their intersection has received relatively little attention from mainstream mental health professionals. This paper reviews and synthesizes quantitative research examining relationships between R/S involvement and depressive symptoms or disorders during the last 50 years (1962 to 2011). At least 444 studies have now quantitatively examined these relationships. Of those, over 60% report less depression and faster remission from depression in those more R/S or a reduction in depression severity in response to an R/S intervention. In contrast, only 6% report greater depression. Of the 178 most methodologically rigorous studies, 119 (67%) find inverse relationships between R/S and depression. Religious beliefs and practices may help people to cope better with stressful life circumstances, give meaning and hope, and surround depressed persons with a supportive community. In some populations or individuals, however, religious beliefs may increase guilt and lead to discouragement as people fail to live up to the high standards of their religious tradition. Understanding the role that R/S factors play in preventing depression, facilitating its resolution, or leading to greater depression will help clinicians determine whether this is a resource or a liability for individual patients.

Religious activity and lifetime prevalence of psychiatric disorder

BACKGROUND

There is growing evidence that current religious activity is associated with less psychological distress, yet research on clinical levels of psychopathology along with lifetime patterns of religious activity remains limited.

METHOD

In this study, we used data on 718 participants from the Providence, RI, cohort of the National Collaborative Perinatal Project, to test for the association between lifetime patterns of religious service attendance frequency, subjective religiosity, and lifetime psychiatric diagnosis.

RESULTS

For women, but not men, a changing pattern of service attendance (having stopped or started attending services since childhood) was associated with increased lifetime rates of generalized anxiety, and marginally increased rates of alcohol abuse/dependence (OR for generalized anxiety: 2.71, 95% CI: 1.11-6.62; OR for alcohol abuse/dependence=1.97, 95% CI: 0.92-4.20) compared to a stable pattern of continuous religious service attendance. Conversely, men who changed their frequency of religious service attendance were less likely to have ever met diagnostic criteria for major depression (OR=0.50, 95% CI: 0.31-0.83) as compared to those who had always been religiously active. The rates of psychiatric illness among those who reported never attending religious services were not statistically different from those who either had always been religiously active or those who reported changing patterns of attendance.

CONCLUSION

These findings suggest that lifetime religious activity patterns are associated with psychiatric illnesses, with different patterns observed for men and women.

Studies of the inner life: the impact of spirituality on quality of life

This article defines spirituality and relates the importance of spirituality to understanding quality of life. Spirituality is examined through organizational religious activities, non-organizational activities and/or as an expression of faith. Spirituality as a variable in the study of quality of life is not a new concept; however, it has returned to the scene during recent years, and has gone through an evolutionary process.