Prevalence and Religious Predictors of Healing Prayer Use in the USA: Findings from the Baylor Religion Survey

Many people use unconventional therapies for health problems, but the extent of this use and the costs are not known. We conducted a national survey to determine the prevalence, costs, and patterns of use of unconventional therapies, such as acupuncture and chiropractic. We limited the therapies studied to 16 commonly used interventions neither taught widely in U.S. medical schools nor generally available in U.S. hospitals. We completed telephone interviews with 1539 adults (response rate, 67 percent) in a national sample of adults 18 years of age or older in 1990. We asked respondents to report any serious or bothersome medical conditions and details of their use of conventional medical services; we then inquired about their use of unconventional therapy. One in three respondents (34 percent) reported using at least one unconventional therapy in the past year, and a third of these saw providers for unconventional therapy. The latter group had made an average of 19 visits to such providers during the preceding year, with an average charge per visit of $27.60. The frequency of use of unconventional therapy varied somewhat among socio-demographic groups, with the highest use reported by nonblack persons from 25 to 49 years of age who had relatively more education and higher incomes. The majority used unconventional therapy for chronic, as opposed to life-threatening, medical conditions. Among those who used unconventional therapy for serious medical conditions, the vast majority (83 percent) also sought treatment for the same condition from a medical doctor; however, 72 percent of the respondents who used unconventional therapy did not inform their medical doctor that they had done so. Extrapolation to the U.S. population suggests that in 1990 Americans made an estimated 425 million visits to providers of unconventional therapy. This number exceeds the number of visits to all U.S. primary care physicians (388 million). Expenditures associated with use of unconventional therapy in 1990 amounted to approximately $13.7 billion, three quarters of which ($10.3 billion) was paid out of pocket. This figure is comparable to the $12.8 billion spent out of pocket annually for all hospitalizations in the United States. The frequency of use of unconventional therapy in the United States is far higher than previously reported. Medical doctors should ask about their patients' use of unconventional therapy whenever they obtain a medical history.

The therapeutic effects of intercessory prayer (IP) to the Judeo-Christian God, one of the oldest forms of therapy, has had little attention in the medical literature. To evaluate the effects of IP in a coronary care unit (CCU) population, a prospective randomized double-blind protocol was followed. Over ten months, 393 patients admitted to the CCU were randomized, after signing informed consent, to an intercessory prayer group (192 patients) or to a control group (201 patients). While hospitalized, the first group received IP by participating Christians praying outside the hospital; the control group did not. At entry, chi-square and stepwise logistic analysis revealed no statistical difference between the groups. After entry, all patients had follow-up for the remainder of the admission. The IP group subsequently had a significantly lower severity score based on the hospital course after entry (P less than .01). Multivariant analysis separated the groups on the basis of the outcome variables (P less than .0001). The control patients required ventilatory assistance, antibiotics, and diuretics more frequently than patients in the IP group. These data suggest that intercessory prayer to the Judeo-Christian God has a beneficial therapeutic effect in patients admitted to a CCU.

Using data from four national surveys, this article presents findings on racial and gender differences in religiosity among older adults. Surveys include the second Quality of American Life study, the Myth and Reality of Aging study, wave one of Americans' Changing Lives, and the 1987 sample of the General Social Survey. These four data sources collectively include a broad range of items which tap the constructs of organizational, nonorganizational, and subjective religiosity. In all four studies, and for most indicators, results revealed significant racial and gender differences which consistently withstood controlling for sociodemographic effects, including age, education, marital status, family income, region, urbanicity, and subjective health.