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A Critical Comprehensive Review of Religiosity and Anxiety Disorders in Adults

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Abstract

Over the past three decades, there has been increasing research with respect to the relation of religion and mental health disorders. Consequently, the current article aims to first provide a comprehensive literature review of the interplay between different domains of religiosity and a wide variety of categorical anxiety disorders in adults, and secondly, to uncover the major methodological flaws often yielding mixed, contradictory and unreliable results. The search was conducted using the PubMed/Medline database and included papers published between 1970 and 2012, under a rigorous set of inclusion/exclusion criteria. A total of ten publications were retained as part of the current study, and three main outcomes were identified: (1) certain aspects of religiosity and specific religious interventions have mostly had a protective impact on generalized anxiety disorder (40 % of the studies); (2) other domains of religiosity demonstrated no association with post-traumatic stress disorder (30 % of the studies); and (3) mixed results were seen for panic and phobic disorders.

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Acknowledgments

A great debt of appreciation is owed to the department of psychiatry at the Lebanese University and Catholic University of Louvain.

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Author notes

  1. Ludger F. Hebborn & Sylvain J. Dal

    Present address: , Terranova 1st Floor, Rue de la Blanchisserie 23, 1000, Brussels, Belgium

  2. Wadih J. Naja

    Present address: , Zeidan Hammouch 1st Floor, Rue Adib Ishak, Achrafieh, Lebanon

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, Lebanese University, Beirut, Lebanon

    Dany R. Khalaf & Wadih J. Naja

  2. Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, Catholic University of Louvain, Brussels, Belgium

    Dany R. Khalaf, Ludger F. Hebborn & Sylvain J. Dal

  3. Building nb. 16 2nd fl (Facing the American Embassy), Awkar, Lebanon

    Dany R. Khalaf

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  1. Dany R. Khalaf
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Correspondence to Dany R. Khalaf.

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Khalaf, D.R., Hebborn, L.F., Dal, S.J. et al. A Critical Comprehensive Review of Religiosity and Anxiety Disorders in Adults. J Relig Health 54, 1438–1450 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-014-9981-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-014-9981-5

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