The power of prayer: Believing in God can help treat depression

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The power of prayer: Believing in God can help treat depression
New research has found that people who believe in a higher power respond better to psychiatric treatment
Benefit is not confined to a specific religion

Faith in a higher being has been found to significantly improve treatment for people suffering with a psychiatric illness, according to research carried out by McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts.

Researchers followed 159 patients over the course of a year at the Behavioral Health Partial Hospital program at McLean to investigate the relationship between a patient's level of belief in God, expectations for treatment and actual treatment outcomes.

Each participant was asked to gauge their belief in God as well as their expectations for treatment outcome on a five-point scale.

Levels of depression, well being, and self-harm were assessed at the beginning and end of their treatment program.

Researchers found that patients with 'no' or only 'slight' belief in God were twice as likely not to respond to treatment than patients with higher levels of belief. And more than 30 per cent of patients claiming no specific religious affiliation still saw the same benefits in treatment if their belief in God was rated as moderately or very high.

Researchers concluded that a belief in God is associated with improved treatment outcomes in psychiatric care. Previous studies have highlighted the power of prayer on a person's health.

Research at San Francisco General Hospital monitored the effects of prayer on 393 cardiac patients.

Patients were asked if they wanted to take part in the trial but were not told whether they would be the subject of prayers.

Half were prayed for by a group of strangers who only had the patients' names.

Those who were prayed for had fewer complications, fewer cases of pneumonia and needed less drug treatment.

They also improved more quickly and were able to leave hospital earlier.

A separate study, at Columbia University in New York, asked people in Australia, the U.S. and Canada to pray for named people undergoing IVF treatment in Korea.

Of the group in Korea, half had prayers said about them by the foreign strangers.

Among this half, the success rate for implantation of the embryo in the womb went up from 8 per cent to 16 per cent. Cases of successful conception - where the foetus started developing - went up from 25 to 50 per cent.


Hmmm...who knew?

Hmm.

I think that that should probably be "The power of prayer: Believing in a god" rather than "The power of prayer: Believing in God". Am assuming the people they asked were all christians, what if they did the same thing in say a jewish hospital in Israel or a muslim hospital in, well, anywhere? They do say "Benefit is not confined to a specific religion" in the tagline but am betting a lot of people will miss that. And people who believe in god and who pray for help will also believe that god will help them so they'll have a more positive mental attitude, which has been proven in other studies to be as effective even without the prayer part.

And the bit about success rates going up because someone else prayed for them, well, I'd be skeptical enough there (but you probably guessed I'd say that). The article I'd say was written by someone who is pro-prayer,and they're sort of fudging their numbers a bit, but in a smart way. You have hard numbers of people, and you have percentage increases, but they're not for the same thing. So, the article says that "Research at San Francisco General Hospital monitored the effects of prayer on 393 cardiac patients" and then "Those who were prayed for had fewer complications" - but it doesn't say how many of those who prayed for, or how fewer complications, were the people who were prayed for having the same procedures as those who weren't etc. Is a lot of info missing there. Then, on the IVF treatment thing in Korea, we're told that the implantation success rates "went up from 8 per cent to 16 per cent" and successful conception went up "from 25 to 50 per cent." - but we don't know on how many people. If there were 1000 people undergoing IVF in the study, it's statistically significant, if there were 50 ppl in the study, it's no so much.

Am not saying prayer doesn't help, but I'm still going to be skeptical about it....

Miles1 wrote:Hmm.

I think that that should probably be "The power of prayer: Believing in a god" rather than "The power of prayer: Believing in God". Am assuming the people they asked were all christians, what if they did the same thing in say a jewish hospital in Israel or a muslim hospital in, well, anywhere? They do say "Benefit is not confined to a specific religion" in the tagline but am betting a lot of people will miss that. And people who believe in god and who pray for help will also believe that god will help them so they'll have a more positive mental attitude, which has been proven in other studies to be as effective even without the prayer part.

And the bit about success rates going up because someone else prayed for them, well, I'd be skeptical enough there (but you probably guessed I'd say that). The article I'd say was written by someone who is pro-prayer,and they're sort of fudging their numbers a bit, but in a smart way. You have hard numbers of people, and you have percentage increases, but they're not for the same thing. So, the article says that "Research at San Francisco General Hospital monitored the effects of prayer on 393 cardiac patients" and then "Those who were prayed for had fewer complications" - but it doesn't say how many of those who prayed for, or how fewer complications, were the people who were prayed for having the same procedures as those who weren't etc. Is a lot of info missing there. Then, on the IVF treatment thing in Korea, we're told that the implantation success rates "went up from 8 per cent to 16 per cent" and successful conception went up "from 25 to 50 per cent." - but we don't know on how many people. If there were 1000 people undergoing IVF in the study, it's statistically significant, if there were 50 ppl in the study, it's no so much.

Am not saying prayer doesn't help, but I'm still going to be skeptical about it....

Won't know til ya try eh?

I dunno if they only asked Christians...but probably not since it says benefit was not restricted to a specific religion. So how would they know that unless they polled people of various faiths?

But it does say 'believing in a higher power..." So I guess it could mean 'a' god. But using your example of a Jewish, Christian or Muslim...all of those 3 call their God...'God', so...