Influence of religious aspects and personal beliefs on psychological behavior: focus on anxiety disorders

Abstract

The current paper presents literature relevant to the relationship of religiosity, spirituality, and personal beliefs with mental health and, in particular, anxiety disorders as an empirical narrative review, providing an overview on the most important and clinically relevant research results on the topic. The relationship between religiosity/spirituality, personal beliefs (ie, magical ideation and paranormal beliefs), and mental health has lately been studied extensively, and results have indicated significant associations among these variables. However, scientific approaches to this field are complex and multidimensional, partly leading to poor operationalization, incomparable data, and contradictory results. Literature demonstrates that higher religiosity/spirituality and magical ideation scores have often been associated with increased obsessive–compulsive traits. Similar results could not be confidently replicated for other anxiety disorders. However, it is still unclear if these differences suggest a specific association with obsessive–compulsive traits and reflect deviating etiopathogenetic and cognitive aspects between obsessive–compulsive disorder and other anxiety disorders, or if these results are biased through other factors. Religiosity/spirituality and personal beliefs constitute important parameters of human experience and deserve greater consideration in the psychotherapeutic treatment of psychiatric disorders.

Spiritual and religious coping and depression among family caregivers of pediatric cancer patients in Latin America

“…In general, most studies show an inverse relationship between R/S and depression, but this relationship depends on the way patient uses his or her beliefs. If used in a negative and conflicting way, R/S struggles are associated with higher depressive symptoms as well …”

Pertubação Obsessivo-Compulsiva e Religião: Uma Revisão Sistemática

“…Durante séculos, considerou-se que a religião tinha um impacto positivo na saúde mental, funcionando como um elemento tranquilizador em situações de stress [5, 15, 18] e levando a que alguns doentes aumentassem os seus níveis de religiosidade [1]. Contudo, o papel da religião na sociedade tem vindo a alterar-se e os níveis de religiosidade têm vindo a diminuir, pelo que importa analisar de que forma se alterou o impacto da religião na expressão das doenças, nomeadamente, da POC.…”

“…De facto, estudos mais antigos referidos por Agorastos e colaboradores [5], prévios à data considerada nesta revisão, não mostravam relação entre a religião e a POC, descrevendo mesmo que, quando comparada com outras doenças mentais, a POC era a patologia que possuía maior prevalência de pacientes ateus. Contudo, os estudos mais recentes que foram analisados nesta revisão demonstraram uma relação entre estas duas variáveis, existindo apenas um artigo [14] onde não foi encontrada uma relação estatisticamente significativa.…”

“…De facto, as ligações entre a religião, as crenças pessoais e a saúde mental têm vindo a ser cada vez mais estudadas [5], sendo que, entre as doenças psiquiátricas, a POC é, sem dúvida, uma daquelas que tem vindo a merecer maior atenção. Vários estudos remetem para a importância que as pessoas religiosas conferem ao cumprimento dos deveres ditados pela religião.…”

The influence of religiosity / spirituality on mental health

“…A narrative literature review by Agoorastos, Demiralay and Huber [2] pointed studies which found spirituality as a significant positive factor on physical health, subjective well-being and life satisfaction. Stressful life situations, such as immune, endocrine and cardiovascular diseases, pain, cancer and terminal illness are some examples of circumstances in which religion and spirituality importance were emphasized [3].…”