GESTIÓN EN SALUD PÚBLICA: Is there a link between suicide and irreligion?

domingo, 20 de agosto de 2017

Is there a link between suicide and irreligion?

Is there a link between suicide and irreligion?

by Xavier Symons | 19 Aug 2017 | 1 comment

There is significant debate about the link between religion and psychological well-being.

University of California Irvine psychiatrist Aaron Kheriaty recently weighed into the discussion, arguing that higher rates of suicide in the US are linked to declining religious participation and a sense of fractured identity among younger Americans. In an opinion editorial published this month’s edition of the Catholic intellectual journal First Things, Kheriaty warns of a “rising plague of melancholy”:

“In recent times, America has experienced both a weakening of social connections and rapid forms of cultural change...Too many people today have lost these moorings. Social bonds are weakening, and the social fabric is fraying. We are at risk of losing a solid identity, a clear orientation, and the coherent narratives that give meaning to our individual and shared lives. In a world stripped of universally binding truths, the sense that we are losing solid foundations leads to free-floating angst.”

Several recent studies on religion and depression provide support for Kheriaty’s thesis. A 2016 study by influential Harvard psychiatrist Tyler VanderWeele, for example, revealed that religious participation among American women was closely linked to lower rates of suicide. Between 1996 and 2010, those who attended any religious service once a week were more were five times less likely to commit suicide. Of the 6,999 Catholic women in the study who said they attended Mass more than once a week, none committed suicide.

Some studies suggest that the relationship between religious participation and suicide differs between cultures and regions. A recent study published by University of Michigan sociologist Ning Hsieh, for example, claims that in some regions of the world religious participation is correlated with higher rates of suicide. Other recent studies, however, dispute this conclusion. A 2017 study published by researchers from Columbia University Medical Center states that “religious service attendance is not especially protective against suicidal ideation, but does protect against suicide attempts, and possibly protects against suicide

Saturday, August 19, 2017

President Donald Trump was elected because he promised to break moulds and drain swamps. “And now for something completely different” was basically the platform on which he campaigned. And something completely different is what Americans got.

Now is this difference due to mental illness or to a combination of personality and cunning political strategy? Yale University psychiatrist Dr Bandy Lee believes that it is the former. Trump is both bad and mad. In fact, not only Trump. In an interview with Salon, she said that the Administration and the Republican Party have lost touch with reality.

Is it a good idea for a psychiatrist to politicise her profession? The American Psychiatric Association asks its members to abide by the “Goldwater Rule” which forbids them from making public comment on the health of public figures whom they have not examined. It’s a good rule and Dr Lee is breaking it by publishing a book, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump in October.

It’s a good rule because it protects the profession. Although half of Americans probably think Trump is mad without the benefit of Dr Lee’s input, the other half, including some psychiatrists, doesn’t. Inevitably many voters will think that Dr Lee is just a shill for the Democrats and that psychiatrists’ opinions can be bought.

What do you think?