Abstract
When the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak developed into a global public health issue, many countries instituted strict COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns to limit or control transmission of the virus. Stringent lockdowns emplaced people within their homes for extended periods of time, precipitating loss of valued resources that served to support their well-being. Empirical literature suggests that people often draw on religious/spiritual resources—such as prayer—to deal with stressors. However, research on the effectiveness of prayer in supporting psychological health amid adversity has yielded mixed findings. In this chapter, we used longitudinal data from a sample of UK adults (n = 1393) to examine whether engaging in prayer while confined to one’s home during the first national lockdown in the UK was associated with lower psychological distress (i.e., anxiety symptoms, depression symptoms) and higher psychological well-being (i.e., happiness, life satisfaction, meaning in life) after lockdown restrictions had eased. We found little evidence to suggest that engaging in prayer while confined to one’s home during lockdown was associated with changes in any indices of psychological health. In a secondary analysis that explored the interaction effect of prayer engagement and religious importance, none of the associations between prayer engagement and the psychological health outcomes were moderated by religious importance. These findings suggest that prayer in the context of home confinement may not be associated with persistent improvements in psychological health after pandemic-related lockdown restrictions are lifted, even among those for whom religious faith is especially important.
Author Note
Correspondence concerning this paper may be addressed to Richard G. Cowden, Human Flourishing Program, Institute for Quantitative Social Science, Harvard University, 12 Arrow Street, Cambridge, MA, USA, 02138. Email: rcowden@fas.harvard.edu.
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Notes
- 1.
The results were comparable when prayer engagement was modeled as an ordinal variable consisting of three categories—no prayer engagement (response option 0) vs. <30 min of prayer (response option 1) vs. ≥30 min of prayer (response options 2–4)—in which no prayer engagement served as the reference category.
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Cowden, R.G., Chen, Z.J., Fancourt, D., Shiba, K. (2023). Can Prayer During COVID-19 Home Confinement Support Psychological Health After Lockdowns End? A Longitudinal Study of UK Adults. In: Counted, V., Ramkissoon, H., Captari, L.E., Cowden, R.G. (eds) Place, Spirituality, and Well-Being. Religion, Spirituality and Health: A Social Scientific Approach, vol 7. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-39582-6_9
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