ArticlePloS one2022
Spirituality as a protective factor for chronic and acute anxiety in Brazilian healthcare workers during the COVID-19 outbreak.
Article in PloS one, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.
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Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed, 22 citations in OpenAlex.
- The Relationship Between Spirituality, Stress, and Depression Among Health Professionals in Greece.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Physiological and Psychological Resilience Among Healthcare Workers in COVID-19 Units-The Protective Role of Religious Beliefs.International journal of psychology : Journal international de psychologie · 2025Article
- Spiritual well-being as a protective factor for endothelial dysfunction in clinically healthy adults.PloS one · 2025Article
- Spirituality and anxiety in pastoral care workers and physicians in the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2024Article
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Authors and funding
9 authors at 1 institution in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundAnxiety symptoms (AS) are exacerbated in healthcare workers (HCWs) during the COVID-19 pandemic. Spirituality is known to protect against AS in the general population and it is a construct that differs from religion. It can be assessed using structured questionnaires. A validated questionnaire disclosed three spirituality dimensions: peace, meaning, and faith. In HCWs we investigated the predictors of chronic anxiety (pre-COVID-19 and during the pandemic) and acute anxiety (only during the pandemic), including spirituality in the model. Then, we verified which spirituality dimensions predicted chronic and acute anxiety. Lastly, we studied group differences between the mean scores of these spirituality dimensions. MATERIAL AND
methodsThe study was carried out in a Brazilian Hospital. HCWs (n = 118) were assessed for spirituality at a single time-point. They were also asked about AS that had started pre-COVID-19 and persisted during the pandemic (chronic anxiety), and AS that had started only during the pandemic (acute anxiety). The subjects without chronic anxiety were subdivided into two other groups: acute anxiety and without chronic and acute anxiety. Forward stepwise logistic regressions were used to find the significant AS predictors. First, the model considered sex, age, religious affiliation, and spirituality. Then, the analysis were performed considering only the three spirituality dimensions. Group means differences in the spirituality dimensions were compared using univariate ANCOVAS followed by T-tests.
resultsSpirituality was the most realible predictor of chronic (OR = 0.818; 95%CI:0.752-0.890; p<0.001) and acute anxiety (OR = 0.727; 95%CI:0.601-0.881; p = 0.001). Peace alone predicted chronic anxiety (OR = 0.619; 95%CI:0.516-0.744; p<0.001) while for acute anxiety both peace (OR:0.517; 95%CI:0.340-0.787; p = 0.002), and faith (OR:0.674; 95%CI:0.509-0.892; p = 0.006) significantly contributed to the model. Faith was significantly higher in subjects without AS.
conclusionHigher spirituality protected against chronic and acute anxiety. Faith and peace spirituality dimensions conferred protection against acute anxiety during the pandemic.
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