Are Adolescent Religious Attendance/Spirituality Associated with Family Characteristics?

Abstract

The family environment is associated with religiosity and spirituality as well as many aspects of adolescent lives, including their health behaviour. Therefore, the aim of this study was to assess family environment associations with adolescent religious attendance (RA), i.e., weekly participation in religious services, and spirituality in a highly secular country. A nationally representative sample (n = 4182, 14.4 ± 1.1 years, 48.6% boys) of Czech adolescents participated in the 2014 Health Behaviour in School-aged Children cross-sectional study. RA, spirituality and the family environment, i.e., family communication, perceived emotional support, and parental monitoring, were measured. Higher adolescent RA was associated with lower self-reported easiness of communication with mother (odds ratio (OR) = 0.68; 99% confidence interval (99% CI) = 0.47–0.99; p < 0.01). In contrast, spiritual respondents were more likely to report both easier communication with their father (OR per standard deviation (SD) change = 1.12, 99% CI 1.02–1.23; p < 0.01) and mother (OR per SD change = 1.38 (1.23–1.55); p < 0.001) and higher perceived emotional support (OR per SD change = 1.73 (1.55–1.92); p < 0.001). Parents of respondents who attended religious services at least once a week, as well as parents of spiritual respondents, were generally more likely to monitor adolescent behaviour. Thus, this study provides information for parents, mental health workers, and pastoral carers. Further research should assess the association of a lower easiness of family communication with dissonances in adolescent–parent religiosity/spirituality and with higher parental monitoring.

Spirituality, Religious Attendance and Health Complaints in Czech Adolescents

“…Especially in a secular environment, this situation could be difficult for adolescents surrounded by their non-religious peers. This explanation is also supported by other studies on R/S in Czech adolescents, which reported that attending non-spiritual adolescents showed a higher health-risk behavior [15] and that religious attendance was significantly associated with more difficult communication with the mother [29]. In addition, other studies have reported possible damaging effects of family arguments about religion on a child's development [30].…”

Czech Version of the Spiritual Well-Being Scale: Evaluation and Psychometric Properties

“…Given the fact that these studies used different spirituality scales, it seems that this finding could be universal and not associated with a specific research tool. Nevertheless, as Malinakova et al. (2019) described higher spirituality among boys in a representative Czech adolescent sample, further research is needed to conclude whether we can generalize the present findings to the whole population.…”

Connections between Family Assets and Positive Youth Development: The Association between Parental Monitoring and Affection with Leisure-Time Activities and Substance Use

“…This would imply that religiosity would have a double effect on adolescent behaviour: a direct effect (as discussed above) and an indirect effect through the role of parenting. These associations should be further explored because recent studies found that only spirituality was associated with these parenting variables [67].…”