Religious Belief Buffers Effects of Stress on Depression

Suffering from depression? A dose of religion can help. Recent research shows that people who both attend religious services and participate in other activities through their place of worship receive protection from the stress of financial, health, neighborhood -related and other problems, which can trigger depression. Researchers studied a sample population of 2,730 drawn from the Alameda County Study, a long-term research project of health and mortality that has followed nearly 7,000 of the California county's non-institutionalized adults since 1965.

However, participation in organized religion did nothing to buffer the effects of family stresses such as abuse, marital problems and care giving on depression, and might actually worsen the depressive effects of these stresses, the researchers found. They hypothesize that because family cohesiveness and harmony is especially prized by people who are organizationally religious, family tensions might well trigger depression in these people -- even more so than might specifically financial or health-related problems.

Why? The researchers suggest that people who participate in organized religion are more likely than others to fault themselves excessively for troubled children or disappointing marriages, or for harboring mixed feelings about helping aging loved ones: "This shouldn't be happening in my family." "I shouldn't be feeling this way." People who see themselves as having religious values but who don't attend a place of worship or take part in any related activities also receive some buffering against the effects of non-family stresses, but not as much as do the organizationally- affiliated.

Further research is needed to determine whether religiosity has a buffering effect between depression and other stresses, such as death of a spouse or relocation to a nursing home. It also remains to be determined whether or not buffering variations exist among different ethnic and religious groups, among ages, and between genders.

The relationship between religious involvement and mental health is complex and not as straightforward as it is between such involvement and lower mortality rates. However, this study supports others, which have found that in general, religious involvement and life satisfaction are related.

Reference: Strawbridge, W.J. et al. "Religiosity Buffers Effects of Some Stressors on Depression but Exacerbates Others." J. Gerontology, Social Sciences, Vol. 53, No. 3 (1995), 5115-5126.