Spirituality Improves Well-Being During the Covid-19 Pandemic
By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.
“It is now clear that meeting spiritual needs and supporting religious and spiritual coping can be a major contributor, not only to patient experience, but also to medical outcomes and cost savings,” – The Beryl Institute
Mindfulness training has been shown to improve health and well-being in healthy individuals. It has also been found to be effective for a large array of medical and psychiatric conditions, either stand-alone or in combination with more traditional therapies. The COVID-19 pandemic has challenged the mental and physical health of the population. It has created intense stress for frontline workers but also for people simply isolating at home.
Religion and spirituality have been promulgated as solutions to the challenges of life. There have been a number of studies of the influence of religiosity and spirituality on the physical and psychological well-being of practitioners mostly showing positive benefits, with spirituality encouraging personal growth and mental health. Perhaps, then, spirituality can be helpful in relieving stress and improve coping with the mental and physical challenges resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.
In today’s Research News article “Meaning-Based Coping and Spirituality During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Mediating Effects on Subjective Well-Being.” (See summary below or view the full text of the study at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.646572/full?utm_source=F-AAE&utm_medium=EMLF&utm_campaign=MRK_1616048_69_Psycho_20210504_arts_A ) Arslan and colleagues recruited college students and had them complete measures of perceived coronavirus risk, stress because of coronavirus, subjective well-being, spiritual well-being, and meaning based coping.
They found that the higher the levels of spiritual well-being the lower the levels of stress because of coronavirus and the higher the levels of subjective well-being and meaning based coping. They also found that the higher the levels of stress because of coronavirus the lower the levels of subjective well-being, spiritual well-being, and meaning based coping. Structural Equation modelling revealed that perceived coronavirus risk was associated with higher levels of stress because of coronavirus which was, in turn, associated with lower levels of subjective well- being, not directly, but indirectly through associations with lower levels of spiritual well-being, and meaning based coping.
These results are correlational so no causal conclusions can be reached. But it is clear that the students’ perceptions of their personal risk of being infected was associated with feeling stressed and this was associated with lower levels of feelings of well-being. This is all very reasonable. This stress, however, appears to affect well-be being by being associated with lower spirituality and lower coping with the stress by finding meaning in life.
The pandemic and the associated stress are beyond the control of the students. But engaging in spirituality and searching for meaning are not. So, these findings suggest that the students, and by extension, everyone else, may be able to deal more effectively with the pandemic by engaging in spiritual practices to help find meaning in life. More research is needed to examine this hypothesis.
So, spirituality improves well-being during the Covid-19 pandemic
‘COVID-19 has generated a crisis of spiritual distress in healthcare settings that must prioritize urgent clinical symptom and infection control. That said, many patients are suffering greatly from spiritual distress as well: existential distress, struggles with uncertainty, despair, hopelessness, isolation, feelings of abandonment by God or others, grief, and the need for reconciliation.” – George Washington University
CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies
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Study Summary
Arslan G and Yıldırım M (2021) Meaning-Based Coping and Spirituality During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Mediating Effects on Subjective Well-Being. Front. Psychol. 12:646572. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.646572
The coronavirus pandemic has significantly affected the Turkish population. During the pandemic, people with high coronavirus stress are at risk of experiencing poor subjective well-being. There is no research investigating the role of meaning-based coping and spirituality in explaining the link between coronavirus stress and subjective well-being. This study examined the mediating roles of meaning-based coping and spiritual well-being in the link between coronavirus stress and subjective well-being in young adults during the COVID-19 pandemic. The sample included 427 young adults (71% female), ranging in age between 18 and 48 years (M = 21.06; SD = 2.62). Turkish young adults completed an online survey, including measures of coronavirus stress, subjective well-being, meaning-based coping, and spiritual well-being. The results indicate that greater meaning-based coping and spiritual well-being mediated decreases in the adverse impacts of coronavirus stress on subjective well-being. These results suggest that the importance of a combination of meaning-based coping and spirituality processes mitigate the adverse effects of stress on well-being during the coronavirus pandemic. Interventions focusing on meaning-based coping and spirituality in those experiencing high coronavirus stress are urgently needed to improve the mental health and well-being of young adults.