Suicide risk lowered by attending worship services, says study

Suzette Gutierrez Cachila Saturday, July 02, 2016

Women who attend religious services are less likely to commit suicide than those who don't, according to a new study released Wednesday, June 29.

The study, published on JAMA Psychiatry, investigated the relationship between suicide and attending services by analyzing data collected from 1996 to June 2010 from the Nurses' Health Study.

A woman prays during a candlelight vigil for victims of the Umpqua Community College shooting, in Winston, Oregon, United States, October 05, 2015 05:51am EDT | Reuters/Lucy Nicholson

The study involved 89,708 women aged 30 to 55, most of whom are Protestant or Catholic. Of these, 36,488 attended service once a week and 17,028 attended service more than once a week, while 21,644 never attended service and 14,548 attended service less than once a week.

A total of 36 suicides were documented during the period specified.

The study authors said women who attended one or more services each week were five times less likely to commit suicide compared to those who didn't attend.

The authors clarified that the study results do not mean health care providers should advise patients to attend services.

"However, for patients who are already religious, service attendance might be encouraged as a form of meaningful social participation. Religion and spirituality may be an underappreciated resource that psychiatrists and clinicians could explore with their patients, as appropriate," the authors wrote.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention identifies suicide as the 10th leading cause of death in the U.S., with approximately 13 out of 100,000 people committing suicide in 2014.

So how should a health professional respond to the results of the study?

Harold G. Koenig from Duke University Medical Center in North Carolina said psychiatrists can consider a patient's spiritual history in conducting a psychiatric evaluation because it could "identify patients who at one time were active in a faith community but have stopped for various reasons."

"Nevertheless, until others have replicated the findings reported here in studies with higher event rates (i.e., greater than 36 suicides), it would be wise to proceed cautiously and sensitively," Koenig, who is not part of the study, wrote in an accompanying editorial.