title: Religion and health: anxiety, religiosity, meaning of life and mental health.
abstract: We examined the association among anxiety, religiosity, meaning of life and mental health in a nonclinical sample from a Chinese society. Four hundred fifty-one Taiwanese adults (150 males and 300 females) ranging in age from 17 to 73 years (M = 28.9, SD = 11.53) completed measures of Beck Anxiety Inventory, Medical Outcomes Study Health Survey, Perceived Stress Scale, Social Support Scale, and Personal Religiosity Scale (measuring religiosity and meaning of life). Meaning of life has a significant negative correlation with anxiety and a significant positive correlation with mental health and religiosity; however, religiosity does not correlate significantly anxiety and mental health after controlling for demographic measures, social support and physical health. Anxiety explains unique variance in mental health above meaning of life. Meaning of life was found to partially mediate the relationship between anxiety and mental health. These findings suggest that benefits of meaning of life for mental health can be at least partially accounted for by the effects of underlying anxiety.
authors.affiliation: Graduate Institute of Counseling Psychology and Rehabilitation Counseling, National Kaohsiung Normal University, No. 116, Heping 1st Road, Kaohsiung, 802, Taiwan, shiah@nknu.edu.tw.
authors.forename: Yung-Jong
authors.initials: YJ
authors.lastname: Shiah
authors.forename: Frances
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Chang
authors.forename: Shih-Kuang
authors.initials: SK
authors.lastname: Chiang
authors.forename: I-Mei
authors.initials: IM
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.forename: Wai-Cheong Carl
authors.initials: WC
authors.lastname: Tam
mesh_terms: D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000818:Animals; D001007:Anxiety / Q000150:complications / Q000523:psychology*; D004285:Dogs; D005260:Female; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008603:Mental Health; D008875:Middle Aged; D009042:Motivation; D012067:Religion; D012068:Religion and Medicine; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D013624:Taiwan; D055815:Young Adult