Spiritual beliefs and practices compared to psychological strengths: are they unique or overlapping predictors of health in inflammatory bowel disease?
Loading...
Date
2018
Authors
Haviva, Clove
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
Despite widespread claims that religion benefits physical health, scant research has compared the ability to predict health by different aspects of spirituality and related psychological strengths. 175 Canadians, with the autoimmune-based, chronic illness inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), were surveyed and interviewed. Outcome measures were disease symptoms, physical and mental health. The spiritual variables were attendance at spiritual services, use of prayer, belief in God, belief in an afterlife, and spiritual meaning in life. The psychological constructs were meaning in life, optimism, mastery, peacefulness, social support, and gratitude. Hierarchical linear regression, controlling for health 10 years prior, showed that, as a set, the psychological variables predicted all 3 health outcomes, before and after the influence of the set of spiritual variables was accounted for. The set of spiritual variables did not predict any of the health outcomes, before or after the influence of the psychological variables was accounted for. All psychological variables were positively correlated with mental and physical health. No spiritual variable was correlated with any health measure. There were few correlations between spiritual and psychological variables, but prayer was negatively correlated with mastery and social support. Partial correlations, showing belief in God and belief in an afterlife were negatively correlated with mental health, imply that any religiosity index including beliefs with predictors of positive health may have limited efficacy. In paired squared semipartial correlation, optimism predicted 4 times the variability in mental health, while mastery predicted twice the variability in physical health, therefore, both should be measured routinely in health research. Public health advocates should encourage optimism, mastery, and peacefulness, over spirituality. By bridging the foundations of key health psychology constructs, for the first time directly comparing them and joining them with the spirituality literature, this study builds a new, integrated structure of knowledge.
Description
Keywords
Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), Mastery (perceived control), Optimism, Gratitude, Meaning in life, Social support, Peacefulness, Prayer, Belief in God, Belief in an afterlife, Attendance at religious services, Spirituality, Religion, Physical health, Mental health, Spiritual meaning in life, Chronic illness