Rx for women's anxiety -- stay religious

PHILADELPHIA, Jan. 1 (UPI) -- Generalized anxiety disorder and alcohol abuse were less prevalent among women always actively religious, but the same wasn't true for men, a U.S. study found.

The study, published in Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, found women who stopped religious activity were more than three times more likely to have suffered generalized anxiety and alcohol abuse/dependence than those who remained actively religious.

However, men who stopped being religiously active were less likely to suffer major depression compared to men who maintained an active religious life.

"One's lifetime pattern of religious service attendance can be related to psychiatric illness," study co-author Joanna Maselko of Temple University in Philadelphia said in a statement.

Maselko, who conducted the research when she was at Harvard University, theorized that women may be more integrated into the social networks of their religious communities.

"When they stop attending religious services, they lose access to that network and all its potential benefits," she said. "Men may not be as integrated into the religious community in the first place and so may not suffer the negative consequences of leaving."