The Correlation between Religious Participation and Mental Health

Abstract
This paper explores an article on results from research on how religious participation and DSM-IV Disorders among Older African Americans are related, if any relation. These findings come from the National Survey of American Life (NSAL). DSM-IV is the Diagnostics and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition. The manual is published by the American Psychiatric Association and covers all mental health disorders for both children and adults. The research that will be explained in this paper was collected from 837 African Americans which were all of the age 55 and over. The DMS-IV mental disorders examined included panic disorder, agoraphobia, generalized anxiety disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, posttraumatic stress, major depressive disorder, dythymia, bipolar I and II disorders, alcohol abuse/dependence and drug abuse/dependence. The research discussed is the first study ever done in order to investigate the relationship between religious participation and serious mental disorders particularly in older African Americans. Keywords: Church Attendance, Depression, Mood Disorder

The Correlation between Religious Participation and Mental Health “Over the last several years, increasing attention has been devoted to examining religious correlates of mental health among various groups of the population” (Geriatr). The sample used in this research consisted of 837 African Americans over the age of 55 which came from households in the 48 coterminous states of the US. The interviews were face to face and were taken in the participant’s home. The participants had to have at least one African American person within the home that was 18 or over and did not have any Caribbean relation in the family. There turned out to be a wonderful response rate of 72.3% due to the fact that it is usually very difficult to gather data and have effective research within the African Americans who live in major urban areas. I believe that this is why we are usually represented less in medical research and etc. There were five dependent variables that were determined in the research. The dependent variables involved the likelihood of having any lifetime disorder, a mood disorder, an anxiety disorder, a substance disorder, and the number of reported disorders. There was no control group however “the demographic variables used in this analysis include age, gender, marital status, education, employment status, family income, and region of residence” (Geriatr). The region was divided into the Non-South versus the South. Each subjects’ religious correlates of selected measures of lifetime DSM-IV psychotic disorders were examined. In order to take the measurement of religious involvement they were asked two questions: Other than weddings or funerals, have you attended church or other place of worship since you were 18 years old, and how often do you usually attend religious services. The study also included a measure of non-organizational religious participation, which comprised of reading religious books, praying or asking someone to pray for you, listening to religious radio programs, watching religious programs on TV and things of that nature. The average age of the participants turned to be 66.6 years old. Within the sample group about 40% were men, about one third of them were employed, the average of the household’s income was $32,853, and the average years of schooling was about 11.5 years. This shows that the majority of the sample did not graduate from high school. Also more than half of the respondents lived in the south. The results came to reveal that the number of disorders was greater within the participant’s who attended church infrequently in comparison to those who regularly attended church. The ones who attended religious services regularly had lower odds of having a mood disorder. These