Seniors use prayer to cope with stress; prayer No
. 1 alternative
remedy
By Catherine Antoine
GAINESVILLE, Fla. - If you’re an older American and suffered from
holiday stress this season, odds are good you used prayer to ward
it off, new research shows.
A study from the University of Florida and Wayne State
University shows most older adults use prayer more than any other
alternative health remedy to help manage the stress in their lives. In
addition, nurse researchers found that prayer is the most frequently
reported alternative treatment used by seniors to feel better or
maintain health in general.
UF College of Nursing associate professor Ann L. Horgas
and Karen S. Dunn, a Wayne State University doctoral student,
report 96 percent of older adults use prayer to specifically cope
with stress.
The study, published in the December issue of the Journal
of Holistic Nursing, also shows that 84 percent of the respondents
reported using prayer more than other alternative remedies to feel
better or to maintain their health. In fact, from a list of 32 alternative
therapies, prayer is used more often than exercise, heat, relaxation
techniques, humor or herbal remedies to maintain overall health.
"There’s been recent research showing that most
Americans pray and that prayer has a positive effect on mental and
physical health," said Horgas, a registered nurse who joined the
UF nursing faculty and UF Institute on Aging this past summer.
"However, most of the studies about prayer and health have been
conducted on very ill, hospitalized or surgical patients."
Horgas and Dunn interviewed 50 people, whose average
age was 74, at six community senior centers and one church in
Detroit. Seventy percent of the respondents were women, 48
percent were white and 52 percent were black. About half the
respondents were Catholic (48 percent) followed by Protestants
(46 percent) and the remainder were classified as other.
"However, women and black/African Americans did report
using prayer to cope with stress significantly more often than men
and white/Caucasians."
Dunn, who also is a registered nurse, said prayer was
classified as a complementary or alternative therapy in health-care
research about three years ago and it most often means a form of
communion with a deity or the Creator.
While prayer was the predominant alternative therapy used,
more than one-third of the respondents reported using other
spiritual strategies to feel good or maintain their health as well.
Prayer, imagery, music, art therapy, distraction, energy healing,
humor, meditation, relaxation and religious counseling were
defined as spiritual treatments.
Seniors who prayed or used other spiritual treatments were
also found to use more positive and self-reliant coping strategies,
Horgas said.
"All of us have events in our lives that can cause stress,"
Horgas said, "so it’s important that people have more than one way
to manage that stress when it occurs; prayer seems to be one
important way for many older adults."
Horgas, who has her doctorate in human development and
family studies with a special emphasis on aging, said older adults
are at high risk for stress, particularly because of deteriorating
health, chronic illness, pain, multiple losses from the death of
friends and family, and the need to accept that death may be
imminent.
"This study shows that prayer may help minimize the
negative effects of stress and help seniors maintain an optimum
level of health," Horgas said. "The next step in our research will be
to examine the actual effects of prayer on mental and physical
outcomes."
Dunn said many nurses do research to find ways to help
patients maintain good health as well as cope with illness.
"This research also shows that nurses need to understand
the importance of prayer in the lives of older adults and that they
should consider assessing prayer as a coping and treatment
strategy," Dunn said.
The results of Horgas’ and Dunn’s study were confirmed
using two different measurements. One measure used questions
about specific mental and behavioral coping strategies in dealing
with stress, and a second set of questions indicated how often
respondents used any of 32 alternative health or spiritual
treatments to keep healthy or feel better in general.
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