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Citation |
Portnoff L, McClintock C, Lau E, Choi S, Miller L. Spiritual. Clin. Pract. (Wash. D. C.) 2017; 4(1): 22-31. |
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Copyright |
(Copyright © 2017, Educational Publishing Foundation of the American Psychological Association) |
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DOI |
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PMID |
unavailable |
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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 = 1,499), China (N = 3,150), and India (N = 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. Language: en |
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Keywords |
Depression; Global mental health; Protective factors; Psychopathology; Sspirituality; Suicide |