Hope College, Holland, MI, USA.
UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
J Behav Med. 2018 Oct;41(5):711-721. doi: 10.1007/s10865-018-9941-8. Epub 2018 May 31.
Religious and spiritual beliefs and behaviors are powerful influences in the everyday lives of people worldwide and are especially salient for women and families around the birth of a child. A growing body of research indicates that aspects of religiousness and spirituality are associated with mental health including lower risk of postpartum depression, a disorder that affects as many as 1 in 5 women after birth. The mechanisms, however, are not well understood. In this study, psychosocial resources (mastery, self-esteem, and optimism) was tested as a mechanism linking religiousness and spirituality with depressive symptoms in 2399 postpartum women from the Community Child Health Network. Results indicated that religiousness and spirituality each predicted lower depressive symptoms throughout the first year postpartum. Psychosocial resources mediated these associations. Our findings contribute to existing knowledge by establishing psychological resources as mechanisms explaining how religiousness and spirituality influence mental health in women postpartum.
宗教和精神信仰是全世界人们日常生活中的强大影响因素，尤其是在孩子出生前后，对女性及其家庭尤为重要。越来越多的研究表明，宗教和精神信仰的某些方面与心理健康有关，包括降低产后抑郁的风险，这种疾病在产后影响多达五分之一的女性。然而，其机制尚不清楚。在这项研究中，我们以社区儿童健康网络中的 2399 名产后女性为研究对象，检验了心理社会资源（掌控感、自尊和乐观）是否是将宗教信仰和精神信仰与抑郁症状联系起来的一个机制。结果表明，宗教信仰和精神信仰都能预测女性在产后第一年的抑郁症状较低。心理社会资源在这些关联中起中介作用。我们的研究结果通过确定心理资源作为解释宗教信仰和精神信仰如何影响产后妇女心理健康的机制，为现有知识做出了贡献。
