Datapoints: Use of Prescription Psychiatric Drugs and Religious Service Attendance

Over their lifetime, persons with mental disorders seek initial treatment from clergy more frequently than from psychiatrists or general medical doctors, and a majority who seek treatment from clergy do so to the exclusion of other providers (1). However, little is known about the relationship between religion and use of the mental health care system.

We examined the use of prescription mental health medications and religious service attendance. Persons who attend more frequently may be more likely to seek help from clergy than from mental health professionals. We focus on medications to reduce ambiguity about the religious affiliation of mental health providers.

We used data from the 2003 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) (2). We measured rates of medication use among adults (unweighted N= 10,126) who had one or more symptoms of mental disorders in the past year. Symptoms of mental disorders were measured by using questions adapted from the Composite International Diagnostic Interview-Short Form (3).

We estimated that 32 percent of those with a symptom of mental disorders used a prescription medication to treat a mental or emotional problem in the past year. Table 1 shows the relationship between attendance and prescription use. We did not find any statistically significant variation in the rate of medication use across attendance categories. We also did not find any evidence that number of disorder symptoms played a mediating role in the association between attendance and medication use.

Some have expressed concern that reliance on clergy may prevent or delay the appropriate use of mental health care (1). However, our data do not support the notion that frequent religious participation is associated with barriers to the use of the formal mental health system.