A brief review of religious beliefs in research on mental health and ETAS theory

Abstract

The present study briefly describes and critiques the kinds of variables used to measure religion in research on mental health and analyzes data from the Handbook of Religion and Health to assess what variables are most commonly used to do so. The analysis found that organizational religion and subjective religiosity were the most widely used measures in research on psychological well-being, depression, and anxiety, with 30%-52% of studies measuring organizational religion and 34%-36% measuring subjective religiosity. In contrast, only 9%-11% of studies measured religious beliefs. The paper discusses the associations between religious beliefs and mental health that have been reported and the value of measuring religious beliefs in light of ETAS Theory. © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.