Spirituality cuts in half the relative risk for depression: Findings from the United States, China, and India.

Abstract

Spirituality has been identified in the research literature as inversely associated with symptoms of depression and suicidal ideation. Whether or not this association might be culturally and religiously bound within Judeo-Christian Western traditions, or more universally human, has yet to be examined. As a step toward exploring universality, we investigated whether the inverse association between spirituality and depression is found, and perhaps relatively stable in magnitude, across 3 religiously and culturally diverse cultures: the United States, China, and India. Our study sample included 5,512 participants (41% women, mean age 29 years, age range 18 -75 years) from the United States (N ϭ 1,499), China (N ϭ 3,150), and India (N ϭ 863). Scales used to assess personal spirituality included the Delaney Spirituality Scale (a phenomenological scale) and Daily Spiritual Experience subscale from the Fetzer Brief Multidimensional Measure of Religiousness and Spirituality (a more theistic scale). Severity of depressive symptoms and suicidal ideation were assessed using the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9). A high level of personal spirituality decreased by half the relative risk of moderate depression across all 3 countries-United States, China, and India. The findings were consistent using a phenomenological conceptualization for spirituality, but true only for India and United States for a theistic conceptualization. Spirituality in phenomenological terms was protective against suicidal ideation across all 3 countries, with a theistic conceptualization protective only in the United States. Findings were interpreted as pointing to the possibility of universal phenomenological spirituality as protective against depression.

Intolerance of uncertainty moderates the relations among religiosity and motives for religion, depression, and social evaluation fears

“…Depression has been the most studied negative outcome variable for this topic. Depression generally holds a weak inverse relationship (cross‐sectionally and prospectively) with religiosity (e.g., Ano & Vasconcelles, [meta‐analysis]; Harrison, Koenig, Hays, Eme‐Akwari, & Pargament, [review]; Jansen, Motley, & Hovey, ; Li, Okereke, Chang, Kawachi, & VanderWeele, ; Maltby et al, ; Strawbridge, Shema, Cohen, Roberts, & Kaplan, ), and spirituality has been found to cut the relative risk for depression in half across the United States, China, and India (Portnoff, McClintock, Lau, Choi, & Miller, ). In addition, people who attended religious services monthly or more is associated with significantly lower odds of reported suicide attempts (Rasic, Robinson, Bolton, Bienvenu, & Sareen, ).…”

Depression Levels of State Functionaries: Empirical Evidence From China

“…The benchmark regression results suggested that people with religious beliefs had higher levels of depression in China, which was also partially supported by the relevant literature ( 63 , 64 ). But by taking empirical measurements and/or conducting meta-analyses using different measurement scales, samples, databases, and taking data from different countries, religious beliefs, and nations, most related studies had found that religious beliefs and participation in religious behaviors could improve happiness, subjective well-being, and mental health ( 65 – 73 ). For example, Cohen-Zada and Sander ( 68 ) used repeal as an instrumental variable for church attendance and provided direct evidence that church attendance had a significant positive effect on happiness; the study of Kortt et al ( 66 ) provided strong evidence of an association between attendance at religious services and life satisfaction in the Australian social context; Van Cappellen et al ( 71 ) found that religious beliefs could increase happiness through positive emotions of self-transcendence.…”

Spirituality and suicidal behavior: The mediating role of self-forgiveness and psychache.

“…The role of religion and spirituality as buffers against suicide and predictors of suicide, such as depression, has been widely reported (Balbuena, Baetz, & Bowen, 2013; Britton et al, 2015; Kopacz, Currier, Drescher, & Pigeon, 2016; Portnoff et al, 2017). In the context of Webb et al’s (2015) model of the associations among spirituality, forgiveness, and suicidal behavior, spirituality is thought to promote positive psychological traits (e.g., forgiveness) in such a way that reduces negative health-related outcomes such as substance abuse and suicide.…”

“…The association of spirituality with suicide largely has been examined as a function of its protective role against risk factors for suicide, such as depression (Portnoff, McClintock, Lau, Choi, & Miller, 2017). Less attention has been devoted to other proposed precipitants of suicide related to psychological distress, such as the theory of psychache (i.e., intense psychological pain; Shneidman, 1993), which has gained increasing attention in recent years (Holden, Mehta, Cunningham, & McLeod, 2001; Troister, D’Agata, & Holden, 2015).…”