The Impact of Using a Faith and Prayer Mobile Application, Pray.com, on Mental Health and Well-Being

Abstract

Online religious practice is appealing to many, especially younger generations (Faverio et al., 2023). Religion can be a reliable coping mechanism for life stressors, and the COVID-19 pandemic was a catalyst for evidence, suggesting a need for alternative or supplemental delivery of resources tomanage and improve mental health. However, there is little research that explores the potential impact of using religiously basedmobile apps on mental health and well-being. The present study explored the impact of using a Christian-based mobile app, Pray.com, on mental health symptoms and well-being. Participants (N=192) were randomly assigned to one of three groups: freely use the app at least 5× per week (i.e., autonomous condition), use the meditative prayer function of the app at least 5× per week (i.e., meditative condition), or no intervention (i.e., control condition). Participants completed three surveys over the course of a 2-month period. Overall, participants reported improvement in mental health and well-being over time. However, significant differences in improvement over time across conditions were not observed. Ancillary analyses exploring the actual app usage data found that time spent using the app was associated with mental health indicators over time. Using religiously basedmobile apps may result in lower levels of mental health symptoms and higher levels of well-being over time.