Varon S R, Riley A W
Johns Hopkins Children's Mental Health Center, Baltimore, MD, USA.
Psychiatr Serv. 1999 Jun;50(6):799-805. doi: 10.1176/ps.50.6.799.
This study compared maternal attendance at religious services with standard demographic characteristics such as race, type of religion, and mother's education in terms of their relative association with the behavioral and social functioning of young adolescents.
The Child Health and Illness Profile--Adolescent Edition and the Children's Depression Inventory were used to screen 445 youths age 11 through 13 who were randomly selected from two public middle schools in Baltimore. Based on the findings, the investigators selected a sample of 143 youths in which approximately two-thirds were at risk of having a psychiatric disorder and the remaining third were unlikely to have a psychiatric disorder. The youths and their mothers were interviewed at home to determine the mothers' frequency of participation in religious services and the youths' self-reported health and mental health status and social role functioning.
Youths whose mothers attended religious services at least once a week had greater overall satisfaction with their lives, more involvement with their families, and better skills in solving health-related problems and felt greater support from friends compared with youths whose mothers had lower levels of participation in religious services. Maternal attendance at religious services had a strong association with the youths' outcome in overall satisfaction with health and perceived social support from friends, although family income was the strongest predictor of five other aspects of functioning, including academic performance.
Frequent maternal participation in religious services was associated with healthy functioning and well-being in this sample of young adolescents. This association is as important as or more important than associations involving other traditional demographic variables, with the exception of family income.
本研究比较了母亲参加宗教活动的情况与种族、宗教类型、母亲教育程度等标准人口统计学特征，就它们与青少年行为和社会功能的相对关联进行了比较。
使用《儿童健康与疾病概况——青少年版》和《儿童抑郁量表》对从巴尔的摩两所公立中学随机抽取的445名11至13岁的青少年进行筛查。根据研究结果，研究人员选取了143名青少年作为样本，其中约三分之二有患精神疾病的风险，其余三分之一不太可能患精神疾病。研究人员在家中对这些青少年及其母亲进行了访谈，以确定母亲参加宗教活动的频率以及青少年自我报告的健康、心理健康状况和社会角色功能。
与母亲参加宗教活动水平较低的青少年相比，母亲每周至少参加一次宗教活动的青少年对生活的总体满意度更高，与家人的互动更多，解决健康相关问题的能力更强，并且感觉从朋友那里得到的支持更大。母亲参加宗教活动与青少年对健康的总体满意度以及从朋友那里获得的社会支持感密切相关，尽管家庭收入是包括学业成绩在内的其他五个功能方面的最强预测因素。
在这个青少年样本中，母亲频繁参加宗教活动与健康功能和幸福感相关。这种关联与涉及其他传统人口统计学变量的关联同样重要或更重要，但家庭收入除外。
