The Power And The Prayer
By Catherine Scullion
Some scientists might like to have the occasional pop at the more religiously-minded amongst us. However, they might have to start giving them a break, a study to be published in PsychoOncology has found prayer online to be beneficial to the mental health of breast cancer patients.
Transcripts of 97 patients from Michigan and Wisconsin were taken from an online prayer group. The group was part of the Comprehensive Health Enhancement Support System (CHESS) "Living with Breast Cancer", a computer based support and information resource. All of the patients were surveyed before accessing the group and again in four months time. A correlation was found between the percentage of faith-related words (God, faith, salvation etc.) and more positive emotions.
The study was performed by the University of Wisconsin-Madison Center of Excellence in Cancer Communications Research and funded by the National Cancer Institute. The lead author Bret Shaw, an associate scientist at the centre was not surprised by the results "From a psychological standpoint, there are a variety of reasons why cancer patients may benefit from prayer - whether on the Internet or elsewhere.”
However, don’t get too carried away by all this and start joining up to prayer groups to help you through each problem. The researchers didn’t actually compare the feelings of people who prayed to the feelings of other non-praying sufferers. Furthermore they failed to use a random sample of the population, thereby denigrating two of the central tenets of experimental science. So they can’t actually say a thing about whether prayer helps or not. God help us!
Find out more about Catherine and read her articles here.
Feeling spiritual? Then check out these other holy articles:
- Revealed - Jesus comes out of hiding
- Interesting - Scientists are non-believers
- Questionable - Could God have a PhD?
- Sad - Canine wedding put asunder
Transcripts of 97 patients from Michigan and Wisconsin were taken from an online prayer group. The group was part of the Comprehensive Health Enhancement Support System (CHESS) "Living with Breast Cancer", a computer based support and information resource. All of the patients were surveyed before accessing the group and again in four months time. A correlation was found between the percentage of faith-related words (God, faith, salvation etc.) and more positive emotions.
The study was performed by the University of Wisconsin-Madison Center of Excellence in Cancer Communications Research and funded by the National Cancer Institute. The lead author Bret Shaw, an associate scientist at the centre was not surprised by the results "From a psychological standpoint, there are a variety of reasons why cancer patients may benefit from prayer - whether on the Internet or elsewhere.”
However, don’t get too carried away by all this and start joining up to prayer groups to help you through each problem. The researchers didn’t actually compare the feelings of people who prayed to the feelings of other non-praying sufferers. Furthermore they failed to use a random sample of the population, thereby denigrating two of the central tenets of experimental science. So they can’t actually say a thing about whether prayer helps or not. God help us!
Find out more about Catherine and read her articles here.
Feeling spiritual? Then check out these other holy articles:
- Revealed - Jesus comes out of hiding
- Interesting - Scientists are non-believers
- Questionable - Could God have a PhD?
- Sad - Canine wedding put asunder
Image: Vicky S
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