“I am spiritual, but not religious”: Does one without the other protect against adolescent health-risk behaviour?

Maliňáková, Klára; Kopčáková, Jaroslava; Gecková, Andrea Madarasová; Dijk, Jitse P. van; Fürstová, Jana; Kalman, Michal; Tavel, Peter; Reijneveld, Sijmen A.

doi:10.1007/s00038-018-1116-4

Cited by 20 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 36 publications

(43 reference statements)

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“…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].…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 72%

“…Research suggests that religiosity and spirituality have positive effects on adolescent health attitudes or behaviors [13]. Spirituality (distinctly and in relation to religiosity) has been shown to be associated with the healthy development of adolescents [14] and their lower health-risk behavior [15]. It has further noted their more active ways of spending leisure time [16], with an enhanced ability to cope and with positive outcomes in mental health, psychological well-being, and academic learning [14].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Spirituality, Religious Attendance and Health Complaints in Czech Adolescents

Zidkova

Glogar

Šolcová

et al. 2020

IJERPH

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Research in some religious countries shows that religiosity and spirituality positively affect adolescent health. We studied whether religiosity and spirituality also have positive associations with adolescent health in a secular country. We tested the associations between religious attendance and spirituality and self-reported health and health complaints using a representative sample of Czech adolescents (n = 4182, 14.4 ± 1.1 years, 48.6% boys) from the 2014 health behavior in school-aged children (HBSC) study. We used religious attendance, the adjusted shortened version of the spiritual well-being scale (SWBS), and its two components—religious well-being (RWB) and existential well-being (EWB)—as independent variables and the eight item “HBSC symptom checklist” and self-reported overall health as dependent variables. A higher level of spirituality was associated with lower chances of health complaints and self-reported health, ranging from a 9% to 30% decrease in odd ratios (OR). Religious attendance was not associated with any of the observed variables. The EWB showed a negative association with all of the observed variables, with associations ranging from a 19% to 47% decrease. The RWB was associated with a higher risk of nervousness (OR = 1.12), while other associations were not significant. Non-spiritual but attending respondents were more likely to report a higher occurrence of stomachache (OR = 2.20) and had significantly worse overall health (OR = 2.38). In a largely secular country, we found that spirituality and the EWB (unlike religious attendance and the RWB) could have a significant influence on adolescent health.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 72%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spirituality, Religious Attendance and Health Complaints in Czech Adolescents

Zidkova

Glogar

Šolcová

et al. 2020

IJERPH

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“…In the main analysis, spirituality was assessed as a scale variable in order to prevent a loss of information. However, according to previous studies [10,31], spirituality was also dichotomized for sensitivity analysis (graphical representation), and participants with a score of 34 or higher (upper quartile of the score) were considered as spiritual, and the rest as non-spiritual. Cronbach’s alpha was 0.81 in our sample for the total scale, for the RWB it was 0.93, and for the EWB 0.76.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Zinnbauer and Pargament [8] summarized the definitions of religiosity and spirituality and concluded that the usefulness of polarizing religiosity and spirituality is unclear and that differences between the two will continue to be identified. In empirical research, religiosity and spirituality are sometimes treated as one factor in order to derive a composite score for general religiosity (e.g., [9]) and are sometimes compared with each other (e.g., [10]). Within the context of health-related outcomes of religiosity and spirituality in adolescents, the study of Malinakova et al [10] showed that mere religious attendance and spirituality were associated with a decreased risk of only one or two kinds of health-risk behaviour.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In empirical research, religiosity and spirituality are sometimes treated as one factor in order to derive a composite score for general religiosity (e.g., [9]) and are sometimes compared with each other (e.g., [10]). Within the context of health-related outcomes of religiosity and spirituality in adolescents, the study of Malinakova et al [10] showed that mere religious attendance and spirituality were associated with a decreased risk of only one or two kinds of health-risk behaviour. In contrast, their multiplicative interaction was associated with a decreased risk of four of the five health-risk behaviours.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Are Adolescent Religious Attendance/Spirituality Associated with Family Characteristics?

Maliňáková

Trnka

Bartůšková

et al. 2019

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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.

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