Nursing More Open to Religion Than Psychiatry & Psychology

Religious and spiritual factors are more likely to be studied in mental health nursing journals than in psychiatry or psychology journals. A review of quantitative studies published in mental health nursing journals over a five-year period revealed that 10% of the studies included a measure of religion or spirituality - a figure three to eight times higher than that found in psychiatry and psychology journals.

To determine how often religious and spiritual variables are considered in mental health nursing research, reviewers evaluated all empirical articles published from 1991 to 1995 in the Archives of Psychiatric Nursing, Journal of Psychosocial Nursing, and Issues in Mental Health Nursing. Of the 311 quantitative studies published during the five-year period, 31 (10%) included and assessed a religious variable. This is considerably higher than the number of times a religious variable was measured in psychiatry and psychology journals during the same time period (1.2% and 2.7%, respectively).

Those studies that did look at religion found ample evidence of its impact on health including greater risk of suicide among those with less church involvement, high utilization of religion and spirituality among patients coping with illness, and better ability to cope with stress among religious families.

One critique the reviewers had of the nursing research that did look at religion was that a majority of those studies (61%) only used a single item to assess the religious variable. Religion is a very rich variable and "The use of a single variable ÷ may not provide the quality of information that researchers are seeking," noted the reviewers.

Why might studies in mental health nursing journals be more likely to contain religious and spiritual variables than those in psychiatry and psychology? The reviewers point out that, "Whereas the founder of modern nursing, Florence Nightingale, taught that spirituality was intrinsic to human experience and compatible with scientific inquiry, the founder of modern psychiatry, Sigmund Freud, had a strongly held view of religion as pathological."

"Psychiatrists are slowly catching on to the fact that religion is important to mental health. This review should serve as a wake-up call to psychiatrists to pay more attention to religion in their research," noted Dr. David Larson, psychiatrist and president of the National Institute for Healthcare Research (NIHR).

Reference: Weaver, AJ, et al. An Analysis of Research on Religious and Spiritual Variables in Three Major Mental Health Nursing Journals. Issues in Mental Health Nursing. May/June 1998; 19:263-276.