SPIRTUALITY AND ANEXIETY IN STUDENTS
Investigation of the role of spirituality in decreasing anxiety in graduate students in college
Discussion
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). i 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
