Women who go to church are five times less likely to commit suicide, according to new research.
Compared to the women who attended services once a week or more, those who rejected religion were more likely to take their own lives, the study found.
Church attendance may lower the odds of mental health problems because it gives people a sense of community and meaningful social participation, they said.
And it is also known that the major world religions all have traditions prohibiting suicide.
Researchers analysed almost 90,000 women to look at the associations between going to church and suicide between 1996 and 2010.
Among the women, who were mostly Catholic or Protestant, more than 17,000 attended church more than once a week while 36,488 attended once per week and 21,644 had never attended.
The researchers, from the Harvard School of Public Health, found that compared to the women who attended services once a week or more, those who rejected religion were more likely to commit suicide.
Dr Tyler Vanderweele and his co-authors admit that the study involved mostly white Christians and female nurses which limited the participants’ variability.
Following up their research the authors found that 36 had committed suicide, a leading cause of death worldwide and prohibited by many religious traditions.
Dr Vanderweele said: ‘Our results do not imply that health care providers should prescribe attendance at religious services.
‘However, for patients who are already religious, service attendance might be encouraged as a form of meaningful social participation.
‘Religion and spirituality may be an underappreciated resource that psychiatrists and clinicians could explore with their patients, as appropriate.’
In an editorial on the study Dr Harold Koenig, director of the Center for Spirituality, Theology and Health at Duke University Medical Center, said it is important for doctors to ask patients about their spiritual history when they evaluate them for psychiatric conditions.
He said: ‘This may identify patients who at one time were active in a faith community but have stopped for various reasons.’
The research, published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, builds on a wealth of evidence linking religion and church to better mental health.
Last year British and Dutch researches declared that going to church is an effective way of keeping depression at bay.
People who join a religious organisation – whether it is a church, synagogue or mosque – have better mental health than those who join a community group or political party.
Membership of a religious group is also more beneficial than taking part in sport, education or charity work, their study suggested.
The four-year study monitored 9,000 people aged over 50, from countries across Europe.
(Source: dailymail)