Studying Religion and Spirituality As a Protective Factor Against Depression and Anxiety Symptoms in Younger and Older Adults

Background and Purpose: Recently, there has been a rise in depression and anxiety in the United States (Czeisler, et al., 2020). It is crucial that preventative interventions be explored to address the increase in mental illness. Religion and spirituality have shown to be a buffer against the development of depression and anxiety (Rasic et al., 2019). Recent trends show dramatic generational differences between younger and older adults in their attitude towards religion and spirituality. Unfortunately, most research in this area is outdated or focuses on older adults. Therefore, this study sought to examine (1) the effect of religion and spirituality as protective factors on symptoms of depression and anxiety; and (2) the generational differences in the effect of religion and spirituality on mental health between younger and older adults.

Methods: This study conducted a secondary data analysis of the Midlife Development in the United States Refresher (MIDUS-R) conducted between 2011-2012. The MIDUS-R randomly selected 3,577 participants throughout the U.S. who were non-institutionalized English-speaking adults. Data was collected through an initial telephone survey and a follow-up mailed self-administered questionnaire (SAQ). The current study included a subsample of adults who completed both the telephone survey and the SAQ (N = 2,561). The sample consisted of young adults (25 to 40 years old, n=640) and older adults (41 to 75 years old, n=1,939). Binary variables indicated depression if participants reported feeling “sad, blue or depressed” for at least most of the day almost every day, and anxiety was indicated if participants chose "most days" to at least one of the ten items. Religiosity or spirituality variables included religious identification (7 items, alpha=.92), religious coping (2 items), private religious practices (3 items, alpha=.70), religious support (4 items, alpha=.53), mindfulness (9 items, alpha=.96), and religious attendance (1 item). A series of binary logistic regression analyses predicted the presence of anxiety or depressive symptoms and these analyses were conducted separately with younger and older generation groups.

Results: Religious service attendance decreased the likelihood of having anxiety symptoms among older adults (OR = 0.99). However, religious identification increased the likelihood of having anxiety symptoms (OR= 1.38), and private religious practices also increased the likelihood of having depressive symptoms among older adults (OR= 1.03). No religious variables significantly predicted the presence of anxiety or depression symptoms among the young adult group.

Conclusions: This study’s findings suggest that religion has both a positive and negative relationship with mental health among older adults. Possible explanations for the positive association are that individuals may increase their private religious practices to cope with their mental health. High religious identification may increase the likelihood of negative religious coping affecting a person’s mental health. The absence of effect of religious variables on mental health in the young adult group may reflect the recent changes in younger adult attitudes being negative or indifferent towards religion. Future research should further explore how these generational changes in attitude towards religion between younger and older adults may or may not affect an individual’s mental health.