Am J Epidemiol. 2022 Mar 24;191(4):584-590. doi: 10.1093/aje/kwab276.
Several studies have associated religiosity with better mental health, but these studies have only partially addressed the problem of confounding. The present study pooled data from multiple cohort studies with siblings to examine whether associations between religiosity and mental health are confounded by familial factors (i.e., shared family background and siblings' shared genetics). Data were collected between 1982 and 2017. Mental health was assessed with self-reported psychological distress (including depressive symptoms) and psychological well-being. Religious attendance was associated with lower psychological distress (standard-deviation difference between weekly vs. never attendance, B = -0.14, confidence interval (CI): -0.19, -0.09; n = 24,598 pairs), and this was attenuated by almost half in the sibling analysis (B = -0.08, CI: = -0.13, -0.04). Religious attendance was also related to higher well-being (B = 0.29, CI: = 0.14, 0.45; n = 3,728 pairs), and this estimate remained unchanged in sibling analysis. Results were similar for religiousness. The findings suggest that previous longitudinal studies may have overestimated the association between religiosity and psychological distress, as the sibling estimate was only one-third of the previously reported meta-analytical association (standardized correlation -0.03 vs. -0.08).
一些研究将宗教信仰与更好的心理健康联系起来，但这些研究只是部分解决了混杂问题。本研究汇集了来自多个队列研究的兄弟姐妹数据，以检验宗教信仰与心理健康之间的关联是否受到家庭因素（即共同家庭背景和兄弟姐妹的共同遗传）的混杂。数据收集于 1982 年至 2017 年之间。心理健康通过自我报告的心理困扰（包括抑郁症状）和心理幸福感来评估。宗教参与与较低的心理困扰相关（每周与从不参加的标准偏差差异，B = -0.14，置信区间（CI）：-0.19，-0.09；n = 24598 对），而在兄弟姐妹分析中，这种相关性几乎减少了一半（B = -0.08，CI：-0.13，-0.04）。宗教参与也与更高的幸福感相关（B = 0.29，CI：0.14，0.45；n = 3728 对），而在兄弟姐妹分析中，这一估计值保持不变。宗教信仰的结果也类似。研究结果表明，之前的纵向研究可能高估了宗教信仰与心理困扰之间的关联，因为兄弟姐妹的估计值仅为之前报道的元分析关联的三分之一（标准化相关系数-0.03 对-0.08）。
