SPIRTUALITY AND ANEXIETY IN STUDENTS
Investigation of the role of spirituality in
decreasing anxiety in graduate students in college
Discussion
SPIRTUALITY AND ANEXIETY IN STUDENTS
Regardless of the origin of anxiety and depression, being at a young age is a risk factor
in itself.(Matar Boumosleh & Jaalouk, 2017). Our study aims to identify the relationship
between religion and anxiety and depression on campus. We hypothesize that more time
praying can relieve students' anxiety and improve mood states such as depression. The
present study results support the hypothesis that increasing praying time during the week
can enhance students' ability to fight anxiety. There are two key findings of the present
research. First, religion can improve the mood of believers more than non-religious
people. Second, a period of praying is critical to improving anxiety and depression. This
pattern of results is consistent with the previous literature. It is shown that meditation
can relieve anxiety. (Saeed et al., 2019). In addition, it is depicted that religion and
praying can ameliorate the anxiety of death. (Jong, 2021). There are at least two
potential limitations concerning the results of this study. The first limitation concerns that
participants think asking a question about religion breaches their privacy. A second
potential limitation is that participants only believe in their religion. Despite these
limitations, these results suggest several theoretical and practical implications that
regardless of religious type, meditation and talking to supernatural power can ease their
pain. In terms of future research, it would be useful to extend the current findings by
examining large populations including different layer of society.
Conclusion This study's results gain us to better understand how to improve lifestyle at a
young age under stressful conditions.
Results
SPIRTUALITY AND ANEXIETY IN STUDENTS
Of the 35 participants who completed the initial screening survey, 15 participants (42.8%)
participants were excluded for not meeting the study criteria, as they did not believe in
religion. The rest of the participants equal 20 (57.1%) meet the study criteria. Response
rates are presented in Table 1. To assess whether a time of praying improves
participants' anxiety and depression, we operationalized performance in the timing of
prayer. For each participant, the time of praying was was calculated base on self-report
hours in the questionnaire. Each item in the questionnaire was related to choosing from
the following alternatives: never 1 - almost never 2 – sometimes 3 - fairly often 4 - very
often. Figure 1
When all questionnaires were administered online response rate comes out for prayer
time (M=1.66, SD=0.49) and anxiety and depression (M=3.25, SD=0.86). aa The findings
produced a statistically significant effect of prayer on lessening anxiety and depression. [
t(10)= -5.167,p<0.001, Cl(-1.311, -4.947)
SPIRTUALITY AND ANEXIETY IN STUDENTS
Figure 1
Relation between pray time and anxiety and depression
Table 1
SPIRTUALITY AND ANEXIETY IN STUDENTS
References
Jong, J. (2021). Death anxiety and religion. Curr Opin Psychol, 40, 40-44.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2020.08.004
Matar Boumosleh, J., & Jaalouk, D. (2017). Depression, anxiety, and smartphone
addiction in university students- A cross sectional study. PLoS One, 12(8),
e0182239. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0182239
