Religious involvement, symptom of pathology or signal of health : a social psychological study

Field: Psychology (Social Sciences)

The purpose of this study was to explore the impact of religious involvement on mental health assessment. Three different categories of patient religious involvement (agnostic, traditional, and charismatic) were presented (via patient histories) to representatives of three different professional groups (mental health professionals, nonmental health professionals, and pastoral counselors). The following were hypothesized: 1) category of religious involvement would affect the diagnostic judgments of all three professional groups, 2) professional affiliation of subjects would affect their diagnosis of patient, and 3) mental health professionals would give more severe diagnostic evaluations than pastoral counselors to the patients representing the traditional and charismatic categories of religious involvement. The subjects who participated in this study were 94 professionals employed full time in their particular professional field. All subjects had attained as a minimum a masters or masters equivalent degree. The subjects in the mental health professional group and the pastoral counselor group had training in the area of counseling and were conducting counseling sessions as a part of their occupational responsibilities. The data collection took place on an individual or small group basis at the subjects' job sites. The dependent variables were three mental health measures (Mental Health Factor scale, Psychological Adjustment scale, and Diagnosis scale) and one Similarity scale. These were presented on the Diagnostic Evaluation Form. The Mental Health Factor responses consisted of evaluations on six different areas (ego strength, insight into problems, emotional maturity, social adjustment, anxiety, and capacity for self observation). An overall evaluation of psychological adjustment was made on the Psychological Adjustment scale while a diagnostic designation was required on the Diagnosis scale. The subjects indicated theirscale. This study was a 3 (category of religious involvement of patient) x 3 (professional group membership of subject) factorial design. Significance was sought at the .05 level. Analysis was conducted using 3x3 multivariate and univariate analysis of variance on the mental health and Similarity scales' scores. It was not possible to interpret the results regarding the main effects due to a significant interaction (F=2.225, P < .012). In the analysis of variance of selected simple effects it was found that the type of religious involvement did affect the diagnostic judgments of mental health professionals (F=4.570, P<.0003) while not affecting the judgment of nonmental health professionals (F=1.1.16, P <.200) or pastoral counselors (F=.497, P <.810). Mental health professionals perceived agnostic religious involvement as more healthy than traditional religious involvement while charismatic religious involvement was perceived to be the least healthy of all on the Diagnosis scale. The professional affiliation of subjects did not affect mental health evaluation mean scores in any of the simple effects analysis comparisons of professional groups. Mental health professionals and pastoral counselors did not significantly differ in their perceived similarity to either the traditional or charismatic category of religious involvement stimulus patient.Diagnostic bias on the part of mental health professionals against traditional and charismatic religious involvement was present in the results of this study. Certain limitations decrease somewhat the generalizability of these results. Recommendations for future research included duplication of the present study in a more metropolitan and less conservative section of the country, conducting a similar study but adding a patient stimulus which did not have a reference to religious inolvement, and duplicating the research procedure but not identifying the person stimulus as a patient.