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). q 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
