According to PubMed, a group of researchers at the VA Medical Centre at Cincinnati (Ohio, USA) conducted a study on the relationship between spirituality/religion and chronic diseases in patients living with HIV/AIDS in four different clinical settings. Their study, entitled “Spirituality and Religion in Patients with HIV/AIDS” (Cotton et al.) was published in the December issue of the Journal of General Internal Medicine in 2006.

For patients suffering from chronic disease, spirituality and religion often become, or remain, central issues. Cotton et al. used eight models of spirituality/religion to examine their association with a number of demographic, clinical, and psychosocial variables. These models included: the Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy- Spirituality-Expanded scale (meaning/peace, faith, and overall spirituality); the Duke Religion Index (organized and unorganized religious activities, and intrinsic religiosity); and the Brief RCOPE scale (positive and negative religious coping). They also assessed changes in levels of spirituality over 12 to 18 months. Researchers interviewed 450 patients selected from a large and diverse sample group taken from four different clinical sites. In evaluating the long-term interaction between chronic diseases and psycho-social indicators, the researchers considered a range of cofactors, such as demographics and clinical characteristics, HIV symptoms, health status, social support, self-esteem, optimism, depressive symptoms.

Demographically, there were 387 (86 percent) males and 63 (14 percent) females with a mean age of 43.3 years. Among them, 246 (55 percent) were visible minorities. When asked about their religious orientations, 358 (80 percent) indicated a specific religious preference, and 95 (21 percent) participants attended religious services on a weekly basis. One hundred and forty-three (32 percent) reported that they were engaged in prayer or meditation at least daily. Three hundred and thirty-nine (75 percent) patients claimed to have had their faith strengthened at least a little by their illness, and all were more likely to use positive religious coping strategies than negative ones: for example, patients tended to seek the love and care of a higher power more often, than to ruminate on feelings of having been abandoned by that higher power. In the eight multivariable models considered, the factors associated with the presence of spirituality/religion included ethnic and racial minority status, greater optimism, less alcohol use, faith/religion, greater self-esteem, greater life satisfaction.

The researchers concluded that most participants with HIV/AIDS regularly used their religious believes to cope with chronic disease (including, but not limited to HIV/AIDS) and belonged to defined religious systems. Spirituality levels did not fluctuate over the entirety of the study (12 to 18 months); furthermore, levels of spirituality/religion did indeed tend to be higher in patients with greater optimism, greater self-esteem, greater life-satisfaction, minorities and those who drank less.
While more studies are needed to validate the efficacy of spirituality/religion in coping with chronic diseases, this study suggests a positive correlation between positive illness-coping skills and spirituality and religiosity. As stress-relief and stress-management skills are often related to spirituality and religiosity, this study may also support studies suggesting that meditation, used both in spiritual/religious and stress-relief/management contexts, has significant benefits to people coping with chronic illness.