Spirituality, Religious Attendance and Health Complaints in Czech Adolescents

Radka Zidkova, Petr Glogar, Iva Polackova Solcova, Jitse P. van Dijk, Michal Kalman, Peter Tavel and Klara Malinakova
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Radka Zidkova: Olomouc University Social Health Institute, Palacky University Olomouc, 771 11 Olomouc, Czech
Petr Glogar: Olomouc University Social Health Institute, Palacky University Olomouc, 771 11 Olomouc, Czech
Iva Polackova Solcova: Institute of Psychology, Czech Academy of Science, 11000 Prague, Czech
Jitse P. van Dijk: Olomouc University Social Health Institute, Palacky University Olomouc, 771 11 Olomouc, Czech
Michal Kalman: Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies, Faculty of Physical Culture, Palacky University in Olomouc, 771 11 Olomouc, Czech
Peter Tavel: Olomouc University Social Health Institute, Palacky University Olomouc, 771 11 Olomouc, Czech
Klara Malinakova: Olomouc University Social Health Institute, Palacky University Olomouc, 771 11 Olomouc, Czech

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 7, 1-9

Abstract: Research in some religious countries shows that religiosity and spirituality positively affect adolescent health. We studied whether religiosity and spirituality also have positive associations with adolescent health in a secular country. We tested the associations between religious attendance and spirituality and self-reported health and health complaints using a representative sample of Czech adolescents ( n = 4182, 14.4 ± 1.1 years, 48.6% boys) from the 2014 health behavior in school-aged children (HBSC) study. We used religious attendance, the adjusted shortened version of the spiritual well-being scale (SWBS), and its two components—religious well-being (RWB) and existential well-being (EWB)—as independent variables and the eight item “HBSC symptom checklist” and self-reported overall health as dependent variables. A higher level of spirituality was associated with lower chances of health complaints and self-reported health, ranging from a 9% to 30% decrease in odd ratios (OR). Religious attendance was not associated with any of the observed variables. The EWB showed a negative association with all of the observed variables, with associations ranging from a 19% to 47% decrease. The RWB was associated with a higher risk of nervousness (OR = 1.12), while other associations were not significant. Non-spiritual but attending respondents were more likely to report a higher occurrence of stomachache (OR = 2.20) and had significantly worse overall health (OR = 2.38). In a largely secular country, we found that spirituality and the EWB (unlike religious attendance and the RWB) could have a significant influence on adolescent health.

Keywords: health complaints; psychosomatic syndrome; adolescents; religiosity; spirituality; secular environment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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