Religiosity, spirituality impact health

DENVER, March 31 (UPI) -- A person's religiosity and spirituality independently predicts health outcomes after a collective traumatic event like Sept. 11, 2001, U.S. researchers say.

Daniel N. McIntosh, a professor of psychology at University of Denver; Michael J. Poulin, assistant professor of psychology at the University at Buffalo and E. Alison Holman, assistant professor of nursing science, at the University of California at Irvine, collected data from a representative sample of 890 adults before Sept. 11, 2001. The subjects' health, religiosity and spirituality were assessed six times over a three-year period.

"Across that time span, with numerous controls, religiosity and spirituality were found to be independently and differentially related to mental and physical health, so they are not interchangeable indices of religion," Poulin says in a statement.

The study found following Sept. 11, 2001, religious individuals -- those who participated in religious social structures such as attending services -- had a higher positive affect, fewer unwanted intrusive thoughts and lower risk of new onset mental and musculoskeletal ailments versus those who expressed no religious or spiritual proclivities.

However, those who were high in spirituality -- feeling a personal commitment to spiritual or religious beliefs -- had a higher positive effect, lower odds of new onset infectious ailments and more cognitive intrusions, but a more rapid decline in intrusions over time.