According to Study, Praying Online Helps Cancer Patients
January 6, 2007 by Gloria Gamat
Filed under Diseases & Conditions
According to a new study conducted by the University of Wisconsin-Madison Center of Excellence in Cancer Communications Research and funded by the National Cancer Institute, breast cancer patients who pray in online support groups can obtain mental health benefits.
As stated by Bret Shaw, an associate scientist in UW-Madison’s College of Engineering and lead author of the study:
“We know that many cancer patients pray in online support groups to help them cope with their illness.
This is the first study we are aware of that examines the psychological effects of this behaviour. From a psychological standpoint, there are a variety of reasons why cancer patients may benefit from prayer - whether on the Internet or elsewhere.
In reviewing the messages, some of the most common ways study participants used religion to cope with their illness included putting trust in God about the course of their illness and consequently feeling less stressed, believing in an afterlife and therefore being less afraid of death, finding blessings in their lives and appraising their cancer experience in a more constructive religious light.”
This study’s findings are published in an advance issue of the journal PsychoOncology.
I do believe prayer can move mountains, yes, including cancer.
Read the full press release from the University of Wisconcin.
I’d be really interested to see the correlation between mental health benefits and non-prayer online support group activities, as well as MH and non-online prayer and non-online support group activities. I suspect that the true benefit is communicating on a personal level with others who share and can validate one’s beliefs, not specifically online prayer. I say this because prayer is a “reverent petition made to God,” which implies direct communcation with a higher being, not discussion of such communication in a written forum. Both have benefits, but I think this is a case of comparing apples and oranges, not apples and apples.
kk