The Effect of Religiosity and Spirituality on Mental Health: Reply to Two Commentaries

ABSTRACT

We published a meta-analysis to determine the longitudinal positive effect of religion or spirituality (R/S) on mental health. Forty-eight longitudinal studies were summarized (59 independent samples). The meta-analysis yielded a significant, but small overall effect size of r =.08. We concluded that there is evidence for a positive effect of R/S on mental health, but this effect is small. Our meta-analysis was recently criticized in this Journal by Koenig et al. Scientific debate is welcome, but we disagree with most of their comments. Our reply focusses on the following topics: Is the effect of R/S small? Might methodological issues underlie the small overall effect size? Randomized controlled studies, and change course and look elsewhere for more convincing results?

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the KWF Kankerbestrijding [HDI 2010 – 4871].