eChurch Christian Blog

Behavioural Healthcare

Religiousness may have a positive impact on the quality of life of older adults with schizophrenia, according to new research looking at a large multiracial group of people with schizophrenia living in the community.  The research appears in the September issue of Psychiatric Services, a journal of the American Psychiatric Association.

Previous research has identified the potential benefit of religion in the recovery of persons with schizophrenia, but has not specifically looked at older adults. With an anticipated doubling of the older population with schizophrenia over the next 20 years, the focus of this research was specifically on the potential role of religiousness among older adults.

The study participants included 198 people 55 and older living in the community who developed schizophrenia before age 45 and a randomly selected community comparison group of 113 older adults. Researchers used a seven-item religiousness scale consisting of three dimensions:  salience (the importance of religion in the person’s life), use of religion as a way of coping, and attendance at religious activities.

The researchers found that persons with schizophrenia attended religious activities less frequently than their peers, four times a year compared with once a month, but were equally likely to report that religion was important in their lives and that they used religion as a coping strategy.

The study found that religiousness had independent and positive effects on the participants’ quality of life—that is, it did not simply act as a buffer that prevented psychotic symptoms from eroding a person’s quality of life. In addition, participants who had psychotic symptoms were no more likely to be religious than those without such symptoms.

The authors concluded that religiousness “must be considered along with other therapeutically important agents.” The authors also note that “mental health professionals have been found to be much less religious than their patients, and often they are not aware of their patients’ religious involvement….clinicians may overlook a therapeutically important agent.”

The study authors included Carl I. Cohen, M.D, Carolina Jimenez, MD, and Sukriti Mittal, MD—all affiliated with SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., and the study was supported by grants from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences.

I’ve blogged in the past in regard to schizophrenia, faith and suicide:

Interesting research coming out of the US looking at the religiosity of those believers affiliated with church and those not.

Written by Tom Rees of Epiphenom:

One of the big news stories from last year was the revelation that Americans are leaving their churches and religious institutions in droves. They are becoming “unaffiliated”, although there was a lot of debate over what that meant. Are Americans losing religion, or is it simply that they are disillusioned with what they’re being offered?

A new analysis, using data collected over the last three decades by the General Social Survey, sheds some light on this – and also tells us more about just who is religious in the USA these days. Some of the answers are quite surprising.

First a little bit about how they framed the questions on religion in the General Social Survey – it’s not straightforward. First, they asked “what is your religious preference”. Those who said “none” were counted as unaffiliated and weren’t asked any further questions. Those who gave a religious preference were then asked how often they attended religious services and how strong was their faith.

So the data on strength of faith and religious attendance relate only to the dwindling number of people who are affiliated. That’s important to remember.

The new analysis (Kevin Flannelly and colleagues from the Spears Research Institute, New York) confirmed that religious affiliation has dropped off over the years of the survey (since 1972). Now, you might think that this happens because those who are lukewarm in their religion have dropped out. If that were so, then the average ‘religious strength’ of those left in would go up.

In fact, that hasn’t happen. Even those still affiliated to a religious faith go to services less often than they used to. And people still in religion are no more fervent than the religious of 30 years ago.

But there are some interesting differences between the affiliated and the non affiliated. For example, the unaffiliated are, on average, better educated than the affiliated. Yet, among the affiliated, the better-educated actually have stronger faith and go to Church more often.

Perhaps that’s because those educated people who remain in religion do so as an active choice.

It works the opposite way around for income. After adjusting for all the other factors, richer people are more likely to be affiliated. However, among the affiliated, wealth means weaker faith.

The last anomaly is children. Previous research suggests that religious people tend to have more children than the non-religious. And, indeed, this new research shows that the unaffiliated have fewer children than the affiliated. But, among the affiliated, those with stronger religious faith actually have fewer children those whose faith is weaker.

Now, the effect is tiny. However, it does suggest something interesting about the connection between religion and fertility. It suggests that families join (or remain in) a religion for the religious congregations – a social structure in which to raise their children – rather any particular religious zeal.

It’s the classic demonstration of the difference between being religious and being believer.

The Guardian has a poll on at the moment asking:

Is physicist Stephen Hawking right that physics, not God, created the universe?

The results so far are:

81.3% Yes. I believe in gravity, not divinity

18.8% No. God: Hawking ‘not necessary’

Go on hop over and boost the “Hawking not necessary” vote.

On Tuesday President Obama addressed the US nation and informed the world that the war in Iraq was over.

So tonight, I am announcing that the American combat mission in Iraq has ended.  Operation Iraqi Freedom is over, and the Iraqi people now have lead responsibility for the security of their country.

In the years since the Iraq War was launched, 2,000 Christians have been murdered and 600,000 have fled Iraq, according to Fides, the news agency of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples. 44% of Iraqi refugees are Christians, and many of the 600,000 Christians who remain are internally displaced persons who have had to flee their homes.

And all of this happened whilst US combat troop levels were high.

I came across an article in which Iraq’s new ambassador to the Vatican Habbeb Mohammed Hadi Ali al-Sadr is quoted as saying:

Terrorist elements were coming from outside of Iraq, and they only added Christians to their hit lists because an act of terror against Christians got more media attention than killing Muslims.

How wicked is that?

So what will happen now to our vulnerable brothers and sisters?

Well, it’s time for our weekly dose of psychobabble and I’m staggered to be able to reveal to you [Jim] that I have uncovered a rarity, namely, a pro-God piece.

It’s only a short article so I’ll just link to this one:

Psychology Today: The Mystery of Happiness – How to live a soulful and spiritual life.

Wonders will never cease.