Exploring the association between religious participation and memory in middle- and older-aged adults in the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging

ABSTRACT

To investigate the association between religious participation and memory in persons aged 45–85 years. Using the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging, frequency of religious participation was measured from “daily” to “never”; immediate and delayed recall memory were assessed with the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test. We regressed memory onto religious participation for persons aged < 65 years and persons aged ≥ 65 years. We found some evidence of effect modification: among persons < 65 years, monthly to yearly participation versus never attending was positively associated with immediate and delayed recall memory; among persons aged ≥ 65 years, weekly or more participation versus never attending was negatively associated with immediate and delayed recall memory. However, regression coefficients were small (−0.09 ≤ B ≤ 0.06) and most were not statistically significant (p < 0.05). Insufficient evidence existed to conclude that religious participation was associated with memory in our sample.

KEYWORDS:

• Religious participation
• memory
• cognitive function
• CLSA
• quantitative analysis

Acknowledgments

This research was made possible using the data/biospecimens collected by the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA). Funding for the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA) is provided by the Government of Canada through the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) under grant reference LSA 9447 and the Canada Foundation for Innovation. This research has been conducted using the CLSA’s Baseline Comprehensive v4.0 dataset, under Application Number 160303. The CLSA is led by Drs. Parminder Raina, Christina Wolfson and Susan Kirkland. The views expressed in the manuscript are those of the authors and not the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

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