Religion, spirituality and mental health: results from a national study of English households
2012/11/23 by Michael King, Louise Marston, Sally McManus +3 · 229 citations
Medicine · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Alternative medicine #Anxiety #Clinical psychology #Internal medicine #Medicine #Mental health #Neuroticism #Odds ratio #Personality #Psychiatry #Psychology #Religion and Society Interactions #Religion, Society, and Development #Religion, Spirituality, and Psychology #Social psychology #Spirituality
paper · pdf · doi:10.1192/bjp.bp.112.112003
published in The British Journal of Psychiatry 202(1), 68-73 (Cambridge University Press)
openalex publication_date 2012/11/23 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/04
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Religious participation or belief may predict better mental health but most research is American and measures of spirituality are often conflated with well-being. AIMS: To examine associations between a spiritual or religious understanding of life and psychiatric symptoms and diagnoses. METHOD: We analysed data collected from interviews with 7403 people who participated in the third National Psychiatric Morbidity Study in England. RESULTS: Of the participants 35% had a religious understanding of life, 19% were spiritual but not religious and 46% were neither religious nor spiritual. Religious people were similar to those who were neither religious nor spiritual with regard to the prevalence of mental disorders, except that the former were less likely to have ever used drugs (odds ratio (OR) = 0.73, 95% CI 0.60-0.88) or be a hazardous drinker (OR = 0.81, 95% CI 0.69-0.96). Spiritual people were more likely than those who were neither religious nor spiritual to have ever used (OR = 1.24, 95% CI 1.02-1.49) or be dependent on drugs (OR = 1.77, 95% CI 1.20-2.61), and to have abnormal eating attitudes (OR = 1.46, 95% CI 1.10-1.94), generalised anxiety disorder (OR = 1.50, 95% CI 1.09-2.06), any phobia (OR = 1.72, 95% CI 1.07-2.77) or any neurotic disorder (OR = 1.37, 95% CI 1.12-1.68). They were also more likely to be taking psychotropic medication (OR = 1.40, 95% CI 1.05-1.86). CONCLUSIONS: People who have a spiritual understanding of life in the absence of a religious framework are vulnerable to mental disorder.
Cited by
- Response Bias in Research on Religion, Spirituality and Mental Health: A Critical Review of the Literature and Methodological Recommendations
- Handbook of Religion and Health
- Religiosity and Risk of Parkinson’s Disease in England and the USA
- Religious Attendance, Religious Importance, and the Pathways to Depressive Symptoms in Men and Women Aged 50 and Over Living in Ireland
- Spiritual beliefs near the end of life: a prospective cohort study of people with cancer receiving palliative care. [europepmc]
- Association between autozygosity and major depression: stratification due to religious assortment. [europepmc]
- A multifaith spiritually based intervention versus supportive therapy for generalized anxiety disorder: a pilot randomized controlled trial. [europepmc]
- Experiences and explanations of mental ill health in a group of devout Christians from the ethnic majority population in secular Sweden: a qualitative study. [europepmc]
- The associations between religion, bereavement and depression among Hong Kong nurses. [europepmc]
- Adolescent religious attendance and spirituality-Are they associated with leisure-time choices? [europepmc]
- The association between spirituality and religiousness and mental health. [europepmc]
- The Role of Religion in Buffering the Impact of Stressful Life Events on Depressive Symptoms in Patients with Depressive Episodes or Adjustment Disorder. [europepmc]
- Understanding self-reported importance of religion/spirituality in a North American sample of individuals at risk for familial depression: A principal component analysis. [europepmc]
- Religiosity and Mental Health: A Contribution to Understanding the Heterogeneity of Research Findings. [europepmc]
- Worldview Under Stress: Preliminary Findings on Cardiovascular and Cortisol Stress Responses Predicted by Secularity, Religiosity, Spirituality, and Existential Search. [europepmc]
- Spirituality, Religious Attendance and Health Complaints in Czech Adolescents. [europepmc]
- The Centrality of Events, Religion, Spirituality, and Subjective Well-Being in Latin American Jewish Immigrants in Israel. [europepmc]
- Finding Meaning in Hell. The Role of Meaning, Religiosity and Spirituality in Posttraumatic Growth During the Coronavirus Crisis in Spain. [europepmc]
- Differential Association of Spirituality and Religiosity With Rumination: Implications for the Treatment of Depression. [europepmc]
- Religiosity, Psychological Distress, and Well-Being: Evaluating Familial Confounding With Multicohort Sibling Data. [europepmc]
- Religiosity and Risk of Parkinson's Disease in England and the USA. [europepmc]
- The Associations of Experiencing the COVID-19 Pandemic With Religiosity and Spirituality: A Cross-Sectional Study in Czech Adults. [europepmc]
- Posttraumatic growth related to the COVID-19 pandemic among individuals with lived experience of psychiatric disorder. [europepmc]
- More spiritual than religious: Concurrent and longitudinal relations with personality traits, mystical experiences, and other individual characteristics. [europepmc]
- Examining the role of maternal religiosity in offspring mental health using latent class analysis in a UK prospective cohort study. [europepmc]
- Prospective relationships between patterns of religious belief/non-belief and mental health in adults: A UK cohort study. [europepmc]
- Spiritual Health and Psychological Distress Among Hong Kong Community Lay Leaders. [europepmc]
- Maternal Religiosity and Adolescent Substance Use: A UK Prospective Cohort Study. [europepmc]
Related