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Advancing our understanding of religion and spirituality in the context of behavioral medicine

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Abstract

Recognizing and understanding the potentially powerful roles that religiousness and spirituality (RS) may serve in the prevention and amelioration of disease, as well as symptom management and health related quality of life, significantly enhances research and clinical efforts across many areas of behavioral medicine. This article examines the knowledge established to date and suggests advances that remain to be made. We begin with a brief summary of the current knowledge regarding RS as related to three exemplary health conditions: (a) cardiovascular disease; (b) cancer; and, (c) substance abuse. We then focus on particular concerns for future investigations, emphasizing conceptual issues, possible mediators and moderators of relationships or effects, and methodology. Our discussion is framed by a conceptual model that may serve to guide and organize future investigations. This model highlights a number of important issues regarding the study of links between RS and health: (a) RS comprise many diverse constructs, (b) the mechanisms through which RS may influence health outcomes are quite diverse, and (c) a range of different types of health and health relevant outcomes may be influenced by RS. The multidimensional nature of RS and the complexity of related associations with different types of health relevant outcomes present formidable challenges to empirical study in behavioral medicine. These issues are referred to throughout our review and we suggest several solutions to the presented challenges in our summary. We end with a presentation of barriers to be overcome, along with strategies for doing so, and concluding thoughts.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, 06269, USA

    Crystal L. Park

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Colorado Denver, Denver, CO, 80217, USA

    Kevin S. Masters & Amy Wachholtz

  3. Department of Social Sciences and Health Policy, Wake Forest School of Medicine & the Comprehensive Cancer Center of Wake, Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC, 27157, USA

    John M. Salsman

  4. Department of Psychiatry, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA, USA

    Amy Wachholtz

  5. Department of Psychology, East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, TN, 37614, USA

    Andrea D. Clements

  6. Department of Medicine and Epidemiology, Brown University School of Medicine and School of Public Health, Providence, RI, USA

    Elena Salmoirago-Blotcher

  7. Department of Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, USA

    Kelly Trevino

  8. Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology, Yeshivah University, Bronx, NY, 10461, USA

    Danielle M. Wischenka

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  6. Elena Salmoirago-Blotcher
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Correspondence to Crystal L. Park.

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Conflict of interest

Crystal L. Park, Kevin S. Masters, John M. Salsman, Amy Wachholtz, Andrea D. Clements, Elena Salmoirago-Blotcher, Kelly Trevino, and Danielle M. Wischenka declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Human and animal rights and Informed consent

All procedures followed were in accordance with ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000. Informed consent was obtained from all patients for being included in the study.

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Park, C.L., Masters, K.S., Salsman, J.M. et al. Advancing our understanding of religion and spirituality in the context of behavioral medicine. J Behav Med 40, 39–51 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10865-016-9755-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10865-016-9755-5

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