Religiosity, Spirituality and Mental Health: Meta-analysis of Studies from the German-Speaking Area

This meta-analysis of the relationship between religiosity/spirituality (R/S) and mental health includes 39 studies from the German-speaking area conducted between 2016 and 2022/23. The weighted average correlation is 0.083 (95% CI [0.055; 0.111]), which means that greater R/S is significantly associated with better mental health, but only to a small extent. The overall effect is only slightly larger than that found in a previous meta-analysis of studies from German-speaking countries (0.06 when excluding negative forms of R/S) and can be considered rather minimal compared to findings from meta-analyses that mainly include studies from the USA. The results are moderated to a minor extent by whether religiosity (R) or spirituality (S) is measured in the primary studies: The average correlation is higher for S and mixed scales than for R scales. Thus, in the more secularized German-speaking countries, it is more the non-institutionalized, conceptually and semantically open forms of transcendental meaning-making that are associated with mental health.