Spirituality and mental health status among Northern Plain tribes

ABSTRACT

Spirituality measures often show positive associations with preferred mental health outcomes in the general population; however, research among American Indians (AIs) is limited. We examined the relationships of mental health status and two measures of spirituality – the Midlife Development Inventory (MIDI) and a tribal cultural spirituality measure – in Northern Plains AIs, aged 15–54 (n = 1636). While the MIDI was unassociated with mental health status, the tribal cultural spirituality measure showed a significant relationship with better mental health status. Mental health conditions disproportionately affect AIs. Understanding protective factors such as cultural spirituality that can mitigate mental health disorders is critical to reducing these health disparities.

KEYWORDS:

• American Indian
• Native American
• mental health
• spirituality
• SF-36
• Mental Component Summary (MCS)

Disclosure statement

No potential conflicts of interest were reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Following the work of others, we define spirituality as attitudes and feelings about individual relationships with the transcendent and sacred (Koenig et al., 2001). We treat religiosity as a subtype of spirituality (Hill & Pargament, 2003; Kudel, Cotton, Szaflarski, Holmes, & Tsevat, 2011; Piderman, Schneekloth, Pankratz, Stevens, & Altchuler, 2008).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by National Institute of Mental Health [grant number MH048174 (SM Manson)]; National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities [grant number MD000507 (SM Manson), U54MD008164 (A Elliott)].