Religious engagement and psychopathology over the lifecourse

描述(由申请人提供)：我们对宗教参与和精神信仰如何影响一个人在一生中出现心理健康问题的风险的理解仍然相当有限。尽管30%-40%的美国人每周都会参加宗教活动，几乎一半的人会在一生中患上精神疾病，但这一事实仍然存在。虽然这一领域的研究数量最近有所增加，但缺乏纵向数据阻碍了对大多数研究结果的解释。这项拟议的研究通过利用涵盖数十年的宗教参与和精神病理学的多波数据，更详细地研究了宗教参与和精神病理学在一生中的关系。使用生存分析技术，我们将分析来自国家合作围产期项目(NCPP)新英格兰队列的三项后续研究的数据，以检验以下假设：(1)宗教参与将防止未来严重抑郁、广泛性焦虑障碍和反社会人格障碍的风险和缓解；(2)随着时间的推移，稳定的宗教参与模式将与最低的疾病风险相关；(3)宗教参与将缓冲儿童行为风险因素和成人精神病理风险之间的关联；以及(4)宗教活动的出席程度和精神健康将相互作用，并与精神病理学唯一相关。根据之前的研究表明，在宗教信仰和精神病理学方面存在性别和种族/民族差异，我们还将检查所观察到的关联中存在这些差异的任何证据。这项研究克服了以往研究的局限性：(1)使用多个时间点的宗教活动和精神病理学数据，(2)使用根据DSM标准评估的精神病理学测量，(3)整合宗教服务出席和精神健康的数据。与公共健康相关：对于相当多的美国人来说，与宗教社区的接触是日常生活的重要组成部分。这种宗教信仰对健康的影响尚不清楚，但它可能在心理健康问题的人群分布中发挥着重要的、但大多未被发现的作用。这项拟议的研究旨在阐明宗教参与和精神病理学之间的时间关系，以此作为确定宗教参与是否确实影响人群心理健康的一步。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Our understanding of how religious engagement and spirituality impact an individual's risk of mental health problems over the life-course is still quite limited. This is despite the fact that 30-40% of Americans participate in weekly religious activities and almost half will develop psychiatric illness over the course of their lifetime. While the number of research studies in this area has recently grown, the lack of longitudinal data has hindered the interpretation of most findings. The proposed study examines in greater detail the relationship between religious engagement and psychopathology over the life-course by taking advantage of multiple waves of data on both religious engagement and psychopathology that cover several decades. Using survival analysis techniques, we will analyze data from three follow-up studies of the New England Cohorts of the National Collaborate Perinatal Project (NCPP) to test the following hypotheses: (1) religious engagement will be protective against future risk and remission of major depression, generalized anxiety disorder, and anti social personality disorder; (2) a stable pattern of religious engagement over time will be associated with the lowest risk of illness; (3) religious engagement will buffer the association between childhood behavioral risk factors and risk of adult psychopathology; and (4) levels of religious service attendance and spiritual well-being will interact and together be uniquely be associated with psychopathology. Drawing on prior research showing gender and race/ethnicity differences in both religiosity and psychopathology, we will also examine any evidence of these differences in the observed associations. This research overcomes the limitations of prior studies by (1) utilizing data both on religious activity and psychopathology from multiple time points, (2) using measures of psychopathology assessed according to DSM criteria, and (3) integrating data on both religious service attendance and spiritual well-being. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: For a significant number of Americans, engagement with a religious community is an important part of daily life. The health impact of this religiosity is unknown and yet it may be playing a significant, but mostly undetected, role in the population distribution of mental health problems. The proposed study aims to elucidate the temporal relationship between religious engagement and psychopathology as one step toward the determination of whether religious engagement does, in fact, affect population mental health.