CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 516Religion, Spirituality, and PsychologySubstance Abuse Treatment and OutcomesReligion and Society Interactions

Religion, psychopathology, and substance use and abuse; a multimeasure, genetic-epidemiologic study

Kenneth S. Kendler, Caleb Gardner, Carol Arlene Prescott·1997·American Journal of Psychiatry
DOI 10.1176/ajp.154.3.322
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: The authors sought to 1) understand the sources of familial resemblance for religiosity, 2) clarify the relationship between religiosity and current psychiatric symptoms, current substance use, lifetime psychiatric disorders, and lifetime substance dependence, and 3) explore the stress-buffering properties of religiosity. METHOD: Data were obtained by personal interview of 1,902 twins from female-female pairs in the population-based Virginia Twin Registry. Measures included 1) 10 items reflecting a range of religious behavior and beliefs, 2) a scale of institutional conservatism of current religious affiliation, 3) previous history of stressful life events, 4) current psychiatric symptoms and substance use, and 5) lifetime psychiatric disorders and substance dependence. Statistical methods used included factor analyses, Cox and linear regression, and twin modeling. RESULTS: Personal devotion and personal and institutional conservatism were all strongly familial, and model fitting suggested that this familial resemblance was due largely to the effect of environmental factors. None of the dimensions of religiosity was strongly associated with lifetime psychopathology or current symptoms, but low levels of depressive symptoms were related to high levels of personal devotion. By contrast, personal devotion and personal and institutional conservatism were significantly and inversely associated with current levels of drinking and smoking as well as lifetime risk for alcoholism and nicotine dependence. Personal devotion, but not personal or institutional conservatism, buffered the depressogenic effects of stressful life events. CONCLUSIONS: The dimensions of religiosity are not strongly related to risk for psychiatric symptoms and disorders. However, religiosity may be one of the more important familial-environmental factors that affect the risk for substance use and dependence. Religious devotion but not conservatism assists in coping with stress.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1176/ajp.154.3.322

Cites

60 of 60 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Claims the paper makes

This paper’s full text isn’t openly available, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Of the 145 alcohol studies with the best methodology, 131 (90%) reported inverse relationships and only one study found a positive relationship.

    “Of the 145 studies with the best methodology, 131 (90%) reported inverse relationships [206–221] and only one study found a positive relationship [222].”

    From Religion, Spirituality, and Health: The Research and Clinical Implications (2012) · cites this paper as [208]

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Kendler, K. S., Gardner, C., & Prescott, C. A.
Affiliations
Virginia Commonwealth University (US)
ORCID
Venue
American Journal of Psychiatry
Publisher
American Psychiatric Association Publishing
Published
1997-03-01
Volume
154
Issue
3
Pages
322-329
ISSN
  • 0002-953X (ISSN-L)
  • 1535-7228
DOI
10.1176/ajp.154.3.322
OpenAlex
W2149357954
Cited by
516
References
60
Citations by year
2026: 1 · 2025: 8 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 50 · 2022: 13 · 2021: 16 · 2020: 15 · 2019: 11 · 2018: 7 · 2017: 16 · 2016: 10 · 2015: 7 · 2014: 21 · 2013: 32 · 2012: 20
FWCI
16.90
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Locations
  • American Journal of Psychiatry (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Funders
  • National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (R01AA009095, AA-09095)
  • National Institute of Mental Health (MH-49492, R01MH040828, MH 40828, R01MH049492)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Health › Religion, Spirituality, and Psychology
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Epidemiology › Substance Abuse Treatment and Outcomes
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Religion and Society Interactions
Keywords
religiosity, religious conservatism, private devotion, familial resemblance, twin studies, stress buffering, depressive symptoms, substance use, alcoholism, nicotine dependence, life events, psychopathology
MeSH terms
Adaptation, Psychological, Alcoholism, Mental Disorders, Depressive Disorder, Diseases in Twins, Family, Female, Humans, Life Change Events, Models, Genetic, Registries, Religion, Religion and Psychology, Risk Factors, Smoking, Twins, Dizygotic, Twins, Monozygotic, Substance-Related Disorders

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review