There are many determinants of health. One of these surprisingly forgotten aspects
of health is religion or spiritual beliefs.
Johnstone et al. report that religious/spiritual beliefs actually
surpass personality traits as being a variable for predicting health outcomes
(2012). According to research, those
that report being more spiritual or religious also report better health. The mechanism behind this is not known. Many researchers speculate the connection
between health and religious factors.
Arguments have surrounded the sufficiency of religious or spiritual
factors being able to improve health all by themselves. An example of this is the belief in a loving
God for some religions. This in turn
relates to a style of coping surrounding spiritual/religious beliefs. Religious individuals are attributed to
having better health because of the lifestyle they have. The example given by Johnstone et al. was
less substance use and better eating habits.
Social support was another huge factor in improving health.
The researchers in the Johnstone et al. article
looked at how religions/spiritual beliefs influenced personalities and
health. It was even argued that
spirituality is a dimension of personality.
Results from the research done by Johnstone et al. included Muslims
being reported as the most spiritual group and the Jewish people were noted as
having the least private religious practices.
The overall results were fascinating and I would suggest taking a look
at the article listed in references.
The research is considered lacking at this point
because not all religions or spiritual beliefs have been studied extensively. There are just too many different beliefs
around the world! Research also needs to
expand more outside of the Christian religion.
Christians had been the most studied group as of 2012. This research still allows us to have an
overall conceptualized idea of the influence of beliefs on health. The current research in this article lacked the
ability to generalize the effect. As
this article is already four years old, it is possible that researchers have
explored into different religions/spiritual beliefs. Let me know if you see anything!
References
·
Johnstone, B., Yoon, D. P., Cohen, D., Schopp,
L. H., Mccormack, G., Campbell, J., & Smith, M. (2012). Relationships among
spirituality, religious practices, personality factors, and health for five
different faith traditions. Journal of Religion and Health, 51(4), 1017-41.
doi:http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.lib.purdue.edu/10.1007/s10943-012-9615-8
Erin,
ReplyDeleteI totally agree that religious and spiritual beliefs are neglected determimants of health. Such beliefs should be well understood before going for any intervention in order to avoid epistimic violence and failure of our intervention. However; I also believe that we should not treat such beliefs as a pathology if they are against health. We should understand that these beliefs are a very special part of the population social construction of reality that need to be taken with extra caution in order to avoid unintended consequences of our interventions and resistance of the target population that carry those beliefs.
Erin,
ReplyDeleteReligion and spirituality is a topic we discussed in great detail in nursing school. In the States, we are in a unique situation because our patients can be from a variety of religious backgrounds and that as nurses we need to acknowledge and provide care based on spirituality. At the same time, nurses as well as other health care workers, need to practice reflexivity – sometimes health care can require a nurse or health care worker to go against their own religious beliefs – such as abortion or circumcision. As we saw in Lala’s article a couple weeks ago, we must practice self-reflection so as not to unjustly disturb tradition or upset the spirituality and trust of our patients.