The Role of Religion for Mental Health and Psychological Wellbeing: Implications for Ethiopian Context

Abstract

Spiritual and religious beliefs are common worldwide. At least 90% of the world’s population is currently involved in some form of religious or spiritual practice, but in Ethiopia, its pragmatic value has been poorly investigated. Therefore, this review is aimed to search evidence on the relationship between religion/spirituality, mental health or psychological wellbeing. A review of existing literatures was conducted from two data bases; PubMed and Google Scholar. All review studies focusing on religion/spirituality, psychology or psychological wellbeing and mental health were included. The major themes extracted were: definitions and concepts about religion/spirituality and psychology, threshold of association between religion and different types of mental health disorders. Although there is no study from Ethiopia, this review indicates that religion and spirituality tend to have a positive effect on mental health and psychological wellbeing as well as patients’ overall quality of life. Religion or spirituality has been associated with lower levels of depressive symptoms, fewer symptoms of posttraumatic stress, fewer eating disorder symptoms, less perceived stress, lower risk of suicide, less personality disorder and increased subjective happiness. Psychological well-being, but Ethiopia is naive to train, practice and integrate religion/spirituality in the modern academia and mental health services. Therefore, Ethiopia in particular and the globe in general, integration of religion/spirituality in the training and clinical practice of mental health services is warranted.