ArticleJournal of religion and health2025
Religion and Mental Health: Is the Relationship Causal?
Article in Journal of religion and health, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
What it found
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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
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Factors that Facilitate or Hamper Oncology Nurse's Delivery of Spiritual Care in China: A Qualitative Study.Journal of religion and health · 2026Article
- The Relationship Between Health Literacy and Spiritual Well-Being With Symptoms of Depression and Anxiety in Pregnant Women: A Descriptive-Analytical Research.Nursing open · 2026Article
- The multidimensional inventory of religious/spiritual wellbeing in Hungarian language: psychometric properties and initial validation.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Headaches, mental health disorders, and religiosity: analysis of the Saudi National Mental Health Survey.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
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
Evidence is presented that the protective relationships between religious participation and depression, suicide, and substance use are in fact causal. Such evidence comes from rigorous longitudinal studies with large sample size and control for confounding and baseline outcomes; from meta-analyses and systematic reviews of such studies; from robustness of associations to potential unmeasured confounding; and from quasi-experimental designs in the economics literature. The evidence for the associations with anxiety is less clear. The results have societal and public health implications with regard to the proportion of the rise in mental illness that might be attributable to declining religious participation. The results have individual and clinical implications with regard to ethically sensitive evidence-based approaches that might encourage service attendance for those who already positively identify with a religious tradition and encourage other forms of community participation for those who do not.
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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.