Faith Unchanged: Spirituality, But Not Christian Beliefs and Attitudes, Is Altered in Newly Diagnosed Parkinson’s Disease

Journal Title: Religions - Year 2016, Vol 7, Issue 6

Abstract

In this study, we aimed at investigating the validity and characteristics of the concept of hyporeligiosity in Parkinson’s disease. Twenty-eight newly diagnosed, never-medicated patients with Parkinson’s disease and 30 matched healthy control individuals received the Brief Multidimensional Measure of Religiousness/Spirituality (BMMRS), the Stolz’s index of Christian religiosity, and the Francis Scale of Attitude to Christianity (FSAC). All participants identified themselves as Roman Catholic or Protestant. Parkinson’s patients displayed decreased positive and negative spirituality on the BMMRS, whereas beliefs and attitudes related to their Christian religion were unchanged. The severity of the disease was associated with reduced spirituality, but not with Christian faith. These results suggest a dissociation between general spirituality and traditional religious faith in Parkinson’s disease, which is consistent with the findings from patients with schizophrenia.

Authors and Affiliations

Szabolcs Kéri and Oguz Kelemen

Keywords

Related Articles

Conceptual Pathways to Ethnic Transcendence in Diverse Churches: Theoretical Reflections on the Achievement of Successfully Integrated Congregations

The concept of ethnic transcendence—defined as the process of co-formulating a shared religious identity among diverse members that supersedes their racial and ethnic differences through congregational involvement—capt...

The Idea of a Highest Divine Principle—Founding Reason and Spirituality. A Necessary Concept of a Comparative Philosophy?

By reference to the Platonic, Aristotelian, and Neo-Platonic philosophical traditions (and then to German Idealism, including Husserl and Heidegger), I will indicate the way in which the concept of reason—on the one si...

Religion and Violence: Thinking again about the Link

This article is a contribution to a Special Issue on religion and genocide edited by Dr. Steven Jacobs. The aim of the article is to suggest a dimension of research not often considered to be part of the discussion. Be...

The Freedom of Facticity

“Here I am—Jew, or Aryan, handsome or ugly, one-armed, etc. I am all of this for the Other with no hope of changing it.” Thus wrote Sartre in his Being and Nothingness. But was not Sartre the major advocate of existent...

Psychiatry, a Secular Discipline in a Postsecular World? A Review

Postsecular theory is developing in academic circles, including the psychiatric field. By asking what the postsecular perspective might imply for the secular discipline of psychiatry, the aim of this study was to exami...

Download PDF file
  • EP ID EP25569
  • DOI https://doi.org/10.3390/rel7060073
  • Views 318
  • Downloads 8

How To Cite

Szabolcs Kéri and Oguz Kelemen (2016). Faith Unchanged: Spirituality, But Not Christian Beliefs and Attitudes, Is Altered in Newly Diagnosed Parkinson’s Disease. Religions, 7(6), -. https://europub.co.uk./articles/-A-25569