FROM JAMA PSYCHIATRY
New findings published June 29 suggest that women with frequent religious attendance had substantially lower suicide risk, compared with women who did not attend religious services as often.
“Our results do not imply that health care providers should prescribe attendance at religious services,” wrote Tyler J. VanderWeele, PhD, and his associates. “However, for patients who are already religious, service attendance might be encouraged as a form of meaningful social participation.”
The investigators examined 89,708 women from 1996-2010. Out of the 89,708 women studied, 17,028 attended services more than once per week, 36,488 attended once per week, 14,548 attended fewer than once per week, and 21,644 never attended. In the multivariable regression model, women who attended religious services one time per week or more in 1996 had an approximately fivefold lower rate of suicide (adjusted hazard ratio, 0.16).
Dr. VanderWeele and his associates also found that suicide risks differed between Catholic and Protestant participants. The religious attendance HR for women who attended Catholic services one time a week or more, compared with women who attended fewer than one time a week, was 0.05 (95% confidence interval, 0.006-0.48), which was approximately sevenfold smaller than the corresponding HR for Protestants (HR, 0.34; 95% CI, 0.10-1.10; P = .05 for heterogeneity).
Mediation analysis was used to evaluate whether depressive symptoms in 2000, alcohol consumption in 1998, and subsequent social integration score in 2000 played a role in religious service attendance and suicide. With depressive symptoms, alcohol consumption, and social integration score adjusted, the women who attended religious services fewer than once per week, compared with women who did not attend at all, changed from 0.85 to 0.94. However, the HR for women attending religious services more than once per week, compared with the women who did not attend at all, did not change (0.16).
Read the full study in Jama Psychiatry (doi: 10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2016.1243 ).
