Religious Involvement and Mental Disorders in Mainland China

Wang, Zhizhong; Koenig, Harold G.; Zhang, Yuhong; Ma, Wanrui; Huang, Yueqin

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0128800

Cited by 22 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 48 publications

(44 reference statements)

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“…Interestingly, this discrepant finding is consistent with data on other published studies on spirituality and mental health in China. Wang et al (2015) observed that importance of religion and religious service attendance in a community population in China directly correlated with incidence of psychopathology, particularly anxiety disorders. In addition, Zhang and colleagues (Zhang and Xu, 2007; Zhang et al, 2011) found that, among Chinese rural women, those who had suicidal intentions and committed suicide were more likely to be religiously affiliated.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Phenotypic Dimensions of Spirituality: Implications for Mental Health in China, India, and the United States

2016

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While the field of empirical study on religion and spirituality in relation to mental health has rapidly expanded over the past decade, little is known about underlying dimensions of spirituality cross-culturally conceived. We aimed to bridge this gap by inductively deriving potential universal dimensions of spirituality through a large-scale, multi-national data collection, and examining the relationships of these dimensions with common psychiatric conditions. Five-thousand five-hundred and twelve participants from China, India, and the United States completed a two-hour online survey consisting of wide-ranging measures of the lived experience of spirituality, as well as clinical assessments. A series of inductive Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and cross-validating Exploratory Structural Equation Modeling (ESEM) were conducted to derive common underlying dimensions of spirituality. Logistic regression analyses were then conducted with each dimension to predict depression, suicidal ideation, generalized anxiety, and substance-related disorders. Preliminary EFA results were consistently supported by ESEM findings. Analyses of 40 spirituality measures revealed five invariant factors across countries which were interpreted as five dimensions of universal spiritual experience, specifically: love, in the fabric of relationships and as a sacred reality; unifying interconnectedness, as a sense of energetic oneness with other beings in the universe; altruism, as a commitment beyond the self with care and service; contemplative practice, such as meditation, prayer, yoga, or qigong; and religious and spiritual reflection and commitment, as a life well-examined. Love, interconnectedness, and altruism were associated with less risk of psychopathology for all countries. Religious and spiritual reflection and commitment and contemplative practice were associated with less risk in India and the United States but associated with greater risk in China. Education was directly associated with dimensions of spiritual awareness in India and China but inversely associated with dimensions in the United States. Findings support the notion that spirituality is a universal phenomenon with potentially universal dimensions. These aspects of spirituality may each offer protective effects against psychiatric symptoms and disorders and suggest new directions for treatment.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Phenotypic Dimensions of Spirituality: Implications for Mental Health in China, India, and the United States

2016

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“…The sampling process has been described elsewhere [19]. First, 62 primary sampling units (PSUs) were selected from 2,602 primary units (include 2209 villages and 393 neighborhood communities) using a probability proportional to size method.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Prevalence of mental disorders in migrants compared with original residents and local residents in Ningxia, China

Wang

Jing

et al. 2016

BMC Psychiatry

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BackgroundEcological migrants has a special background compared with other types of migrant. However, the mental health status of ecological migrants who were expected to benefit from a massive “ecological migration project” initiated by the Chinese government is unknown. This study aims to explore the influence of environmental change on individuals’ mental health and to improve current understanding of the mechanisms that mental disorders occurred.MethodsThe data were extracted from a cross-sectional study. Anxiety disorders, mood disorders and substance use disorders were assessed using the Chinese version WHO-CIDI. The prevalence of mental disorders was stratified by migration status into ecological migrant, local resident and original resident groups. Unconditional logistic regression models were used to calculate the risk of prevalence among these three groups.ResultsAfter controlling for gender, ethnicity, age, marriage, and education, the migrants had lower risk of mental disorders than original residents [OR = 0.70 (95 % CI: 0.57–0.86)], p < 0.001), but had a higher risk of mental disorders than local residents [OR = 1.29 (95 % CI: 1.06–1.55)], p = 0.007).ConclusionThe ecological migration project may be beneficial to people’s mental health by improving their living environment and social economy.

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“…Often, mixed results have been reported. Some reports focused on the association of religion and mental disorders among some subpopulation groups, such as rural women (Liu and Mencken 2010;Liu 2011;Wei and Liu 2013;Wang et al 2015). More recent studies using nationally representative population samples found a positive relationship between religion and SWB in China (Chen and Williams 2016;He et al 2016;Lu and Zhang 2016).…”

Section: Religion Background In Chinamentioning

confidence: 99%

Association between Religion and Health in China: Using Propensity Score Matching Method

Zhang

Liu

et al. 2020

Religions

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The association between religion and health is well debated and receives continuous attention in research. Selection bias is often a major concern among the observatory data routinely used worldwide to examine this topic. Adopting the propensity score matching (PSM) method, the present study tries to assess the treatment effects of religion on self-reported health status. The final sample from the 2007 Spiritual Life Study of Chinese Residents (SLSC) contains 6194 valid responses. The average treatment effects (ATEs) estimated by the PSM method show that respondents with religious affiliations are on average significantly more likely to report being very healthy by 5.2 percentage points (by 3.6 and 9.6 percentage points among Buddhists and Protestants), especially, by 16.2 percentage points among those regarding religion as being very important in their lives. Meanwhile, ATEs of religion on reporting being very happy is 17.0 among Protestants and 13.4 among those regarding religion with high importance and 11.3 among those with “regular religious attendance”.

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Religious Involvement and Mental Disorders in Mainland China

Cited by 22 publications

References 48 publications

Phenotypic Dimensions of Spirituality: Implications for Mental Health in China, India, and the United States

Phenotypic Dimensions of Spirituality: Implications for Mental Health in China, India, and the United States

Prevalence of mental disorders in migrants compared with original residents and local residents in Ningxia, China

Association between Religion and Health in China: Using Propensity Score Matching Method

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