Abstract: Teacher and parent ratings of emotional and behavioural disorders were made for children aged 5-15 years in the strictly orthodox Jewish community in North London, on the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ; Goodman, 1997). We obtained 369 sets of teacher ratings and 226 parent ratings. Our parent ratings generally reflected less disturbance than did parent ratings in the national samples reported by Meltzer and colleagues (Meltzer, Gatward, Corbin, Goodman, & Ford, 2003; Meltzer, Gatward, Goodman, & Ford, 2000). Our teacher ratings reflected similar levels of disturbance to teacher ratings in the national sample, except that the older boys in this sample were rated as more disturbed by their teachers. Teacher ratings of disturbance were associated with perceived Special Educational Needs (SENs), and it was noted that statutory remedial help was said to be needed particularly urgently for older boys. In this community there is negligible statutory educational funding and remedial support for older boys is said to be particularly under-resourced. The strictly orthodox Jewish community is characterized by large family size and high levels of economic deprivation, and it might be expected that there would be high levels of associated emotional and behavioural disorders. The relatively low levels of behaviour disturbance found were suggested to be the result of moderating factors such as high levels of family cohesion, social support and religiosity.
Abstract: London Jewish women were sampled from “middle-” and “ultra”orthodox synagogue membership lists, and measures of well-being and distress, together with information on demographic and other factors, were obtained from 121 of them. For the whole sample, correlates of depression and well-being related to the wife-and-mother roles, and generally resembled the correlates that have been found in other groups of women, although the Jewish women with fewer dependent children were the more depressed. The two groups of women differed on a number of demographic characteristics, which might explain the slightly lower levels of distress and dissatisfaction in the ultraorthodox. For the middle-orthodox group, happiness relates to marriage, whereas for the ultraorthodox, happiness relates to integration into their community
Abstract: This study examined cognitive aspects of coping with stress, how these related to religiosity, and how they related to outcomes (positive mood and distress). Participants (n=126) were of Protestant or Jewish background, and had all experienced recent major stress. They were assessed on measures of religiosity, religious coping, perception of the consequences of the stressful event, attributions for its occurrence, and distress, intrusive unpleasant thoughts, and positive affect. Religiosity affected ways of thinking about the stressful situation, namely: Belief that G-d is enabling the individual to bear their troubles (religious/spiritual support), belief that it was all for the best, and (more weakly) belief that all is ultimately controlled by G-d. Religiosity affected neither the proportion of positive consequences perceived as outcomes of the event, nor the causal attributions examined. Religious background (Protestant vs. Jewish) had negligible effects on the cognitions measures. Causal pathway analysis suggested that religion-related cognitions might directly affect positive affect, but not distress. Problems of design and interpretation are discussed. The study suggests some cognitively mediated means by which religion may have comforting effects.
Abstract: How effective is religious activity believed to be in coping with depression? This study assessed the perceived effectiveness of different religious activities — previously identified as important in coping — among 282 people in the UK. The mean age was 25 years, and participants were either Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, other religion, or no religion. Relative to other kinds of help for depression, religious activity was not seen as particularly helpful for depression. Religious activity was seen as less helpful by the ever‐depressed than by the never‐depressed and as less helpful by women than by men. Among religious activities, faith and prayer were seen as the most helpful. Muslims believed more strongly than other groups in the efficacy of religious coping methods for depression, were most likely to say they would use religious coping behaviour, and were least likely to say they would seek social support or professional help for depression. Other differences between groups were also observed, and comparisons with qualitative material obtained in an earlier study were made. The implications of these findings for help‐seeking are considered.
Abstract: An in‐depth qualitative interview study is reported, with respondents (N = 52; all female) from the following urban‐dwelling religious groups: White Christian, Pakistani Muslim, Indian Hindu, Orthodox Jewish and Afro‐Caribbean Christian. Qualitative thematic analysis of open‐ended interview responses revealed that the degree to which religious coping strategies were perceived to be effective in the face of depressive and schizophrenic symptoms, varied across the groups, with prayer being perceived as particularly effective among Afro‐Caribbean Christian and Pakistani Muslim groups. Across all non‐white groups, and also for the Jewish group, there was fear of being misunderstood by outgroup health professionals, and among Afro‐Caribbean Christian and Pakistani Muslim participants, evidence of a community stigma associated with mental illness, leading to a preference for private coping strategies. The results lend further support to recent calls for ethnic‐specific mental health service provision and highlight the utility of qualitative methodology for exploring the link between religion and lay beliefs about mental illness.
Abstract: This paper examined stress among two groups of orthodox Jews suggested to differ in the strength of the boundary of their religious group. Comparisons were made between the two groups, and with urban and rural groups studied by other researchers. Proportions of boundary-maintenance events (events whose threat had been caused or exacerbated by Jewishness) and of severe events, and proportions and rates of regular, irregular and disruptive events were examined. Boundary-maintenance events were higher among the more religiously orthodox affiliated group, and among whom religious observance was indeed reported to be higher. It was suggested that conditions of higher boundary maintenance would be associated with higher rates and proportions of regular events and with lower rates and proportions of irregular and disruptive events. Generally, the analyses supported this expectation. Boundary-maintenance events themselves were somewhat less severe, though not less likely to be irregular or disruptive than other events. Depression was shown to be unrelated to boundary-maintenance events and (surprisingly) unrelated to contextual threat when the effects of irregularity-disruption were controlled. Depression was, however, strongly related to irregular and disruptive events. The results are compared with those of related work, and suggest that the general lowering effect of affiliation to a religious group may be partly explained by the effects of boundary maintenance, which involves stress, but of a less depressogenic kind than the disruptive stress associated with conditions of low/no boundary maintenance. The findings have implications for understanding the relations between culture and mental disorder.
