ArticleIndian journal of psychiatry
Prayer and healing: A medical and scientific perspective on randomized controlled trials.
Article in Indian journal of psychiatry. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 28 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
28 citing papers in PubMed.
- Amelioration of Adults' Mental Health Conditions and Symptoms Through Spiritual Energy Therapy: Randomized Controlled Trial.Neuropsychopharmacology reports · 2025Trial
- Prayer in Marriage to Improve Wellness: Relationship Quality and Cardiovascular Functioning.Journal of religion and health · 2020Trial
- Preoperative Prayer and Postoperative Recovery Quality Among Patients Undergoing Thyroidectomy in South Korea.Journal of religion and health · 2026Article
- The Meaning of Christian Prayer for Filipino Catholics Amid Pain, Illness, and Suffering: An Integrative Thematic Analysis of Qualitative Research.Journal of religion and health · 2026Article
- Exploring the convergence of faith healing practices with biopsychosocial interventions for mental health: A qualitative study among faith healers in Madhya Pradesh, India.Journal of education and health promotion · 2026Article
- Religiosity and anxiety in relation to health-promoting attitudes toward COVID-19.Postepy psychiatrii neurologii · 2025Article
- How to Diagnose Abhorrent Science.The Hastings Center report · 2024Article
- Spirituality and mental health - investigating the association between spiritual attitudes and psychosomatic treatment outcomes.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2024Article
- Science and faith as applied to medicine: Adopting the middle path.Journal of education and health promotion · 2024Article
- Article
- A Dutch Study of Remarkable Recoveries After Prayer: How to Deal with Uncertainties of Explanation.Journal of religion and health · 2023Article
- Healing through faith: Meeting a chaplain coupled with biblical readings could produce lymphocyte changes that correlate with brain activity (HEALING study).F1000Research · 2021Article
- Role of Faith healers: A barrier or a support system to medical care- a cross sectional study.Journal of family medicine and primary care · 2020Article
- Explaining the Process of Spiritual healing of Critically-ill Patients: A Grounded Theory Study.Ethiopian journal of health sciences · 2020Article
- Religious practices and long-term survival after hospital discharge for an acute coronary syndrome.PloS one · 2019Article
- Alternative and complementary approaches in psychiatry: beliefs versus evidence.Dialogues in clinical neuroscience · 2018Review
- Prevalence and associations for use of a traditional medicine provider in the SAMINOR 1 Survey: a population-based study on Health and Living Conditions in Regions with Sami and Norwegian Populations.BMC complementary and alternative medicine · 2017Article
- Research on Intercessory Prayer: Theoretical and Methodological Considerations.Journal of religion and health · 2017Review
- Spirituality and Religiosity and Its Role in Health and Diseases.Journal of religion and health · 2017Review
- Traditional Arabic & Islamic medicine: validation and empirical assessment of a conceptual model in Qatar.BMC complementary and alternative medicine · 2017Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Religious traditions across the world display beliefs in healing through prayer. The healing powers of prayer have been examined in triple-blind, randomized controlled trials. We illustrate randomized controlled trials on prayer and healing, with one study in each of different categories of outcome. We provide a critical analysis of the scientific and philosophical dimensions of such research. Prayer has been reported to improve outcomes in human as well as nonhuman species, to have no effect on outcomes, to worsen outcomes and to have retrospective healing effects. For a multitude of reasons, research on the healing effects of prayer is riddled with assumptions, challenges and contradictions that make the subject a scientific and religious minefield. We believe that the research has led nowhere, and that future research, if any, will forever be constrained by the scientific limitations that we outline.
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.