From Whence Cometh My Help? Psychological Distress and Help-Seeking in the Evangelical Christian Church

Seeking professional help for psychological distress is generally associated with improved outcomes and lower levels of distress. Given the saliency of religious teachings, it has been shown that aspects of Christian belief may influence adherents’ attitudes towards mental health help-seeking. Based on existing research on American Evangelicals, it was hypothesised that religious social support would positively predict attitudes towards mental health help-seeking, whilst fundamentalism, mental distress, and the belief that psychopathology is caused by immoral or sinful living would negatively predict participants’ attitudes. On a convenience sample of 252 British Evangelicals, our hypotheses were supported and these variables significantly predicted participants’ attitudes towards seeking mental health help, F(7,243) = 9.64, p < 0.001, R2 = 0.195. These findings together suggest that whilst religious support positively predicts help-seeking attitudes, Evangelical fundamentalism, in addition to beliefs that mental illness has a spiritual cause, as well as experiences of mental distress may be associated with more negative attitudes towards psychotherapeutic intervention. Thus, mental health practitioners should be aware of clients’ religious worldviews and tailor interventions appropriately, acknowledging that working with religious organisations may yield the most positive outcomes for patients.

Marital Status and Depressive Symptoms in African Americans: The Moderating Role of Social and Religious Resources

We examined the gendered role of social and religious resources in the association between marital status and depressive symptoms among a national probability sample of predominantly midlife and older African American adults ( N = 800). Greater levels of depressive symptoms were found for unmarried compared to married. A significant three-way interaction between marital status, gender, and resource variable was found only for religious social support. When religious social support was high, married men reported fewer depressive symptoms compared to nonmarried men ( p = .02). In contrast, when religious social support was high, nonmarried women reported fewer depressive symptoms than married women, but these differences only approached statistical significance ( p = .06). The role of religious resources on marital status and depression differed by sex in our sample of African American adults. Understanding these influences may help to address mental health needs of married and unmarried African Americans and suggest a potentially influential role for religious resources.

Students Religiosity as a Predictor of Students Future Orientation: Analyzing the Effect on Secondary School Students of Punjab

Religion has been considered as an outline for the sense of meaning and purpose. This research explores the effect of secondary school students religiosity & Spirituality on their future orientation in Punjab. This research seeks an answer to the contribution of students religious affiliation (fellowship with Islam, Christianity or Hinduism) and religiosity (Faith-based Coping (FBC) and Religious Social Support (RSS)) and FO. A total of 296 Muslims, 290 Christians, and 278 Hindu students participated in this research. Religiosity and Spirituality scale for Youth (RaSSY) developed by Brittany (2011) was adopted, while Future Orientation Scale (FOS) for measuring Future Vision towards Subject Choice and Future Vision towards Profession Choice was developed by researchers. The research concludes that students religiosity has a significant impact on their future orientation (FO). The religiosity moderately explains variances in FO of Muslims and Christians; however, it has a high impact on Hindu students in Punjab

3529 The main effects of threat appraisal on the well-being of African Americans living with HIV/AIDS in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, and the role of religious social support as a buffer

OBJECTIVES/SPECIFIC AIMS: This study considered how threat appraisal and religious social support associate with subjective well-being and subjective experience of pain. Appraisal in this study refers to the individual’s perception and interpretation of the significance of learning of his/her HIV status. The study incorporated the stress-buffering model to propose that the beneficial effects of religious social support will modify the association between threat appraisal and well-being for PLHIV in a palliative care setting. Well-being was assessed both as the participant’s subjective report of their well-being, and their subjective report of their experience with bodily pain. Participants’ subjective report of well-being was hypothesized to be inversely associated with threat appraisal, and positively associated with religious social support. Subjective experience with bodily pain was hypothesized to be directly associated with threat appraisal, and inversely associated with religious social support. It was further also hypothesized that religious social support modifies the impact of threat-appraisal on well-being such that higher levels of religious social support reduce the observed effect of threat appraisal. METHODS/STUDY POPULATION: This was a cross-sectional study using baseline data from a randomized clinical trial–the FACE palliative care study in Washington, DC (FACE: FAmily CEntered Advance Care Planning). Participants were PLHIV who received their HIV care from 5 Washington, DC hospital-based HIV-specialty clinics. The FACE 3000 study paired participants into dyads of patient and surrogate decision-maker. The patient is a PLHIV for whom the advanced care planning care study is geared. The surrogate decision-maker is considered the patient’s healthcare proxy who agrees to honor and advocate for the patient’s treatment preferences, if the patient were unable to communicate with the health care team directly. Some surrogates are HIV positive, however due to their role as the patient’s healthcare proxy, some of their surveys contain different content from those of the patient’s. Potentially eligible participants in the FACE study received a secondary screening to determine eligibility to ensure competency to participate in end-of-life decision making. For this analysis, only the patient data was used. RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS: Subjective well-being showed significant associations with total threat appraisal, and four threat appraisal sub-constructs. Those with lower threat appraisals reported higher values of well-being compared to those with higher threat appraisals. Results from the regression analysis indicated that only one of the threat appraisal sub-constructs was significantly associated with a participant’s subjective experience of pain. Overall, religious social support did not seem to buffer the effect of threat appraisal on well-being or subjective experience of pain. Findings from this study suggest that subjective well-being is associated with cognitive threat appraisal and this finding could assist PLHIV and their caregivers in understanding the coping processes of HIV-infected people. DISCUSSION/SIGNIFICANCE OF IMPACT: Due to stigmatization, an HIV diagnosis can influence a person’s physical, behavioral, psychological, and even spiritual health (McIntosh & Rosselli, 2012). As a stressor, it can compromise immune function to worsen the effects of the infection, while mentally depressing an individual and contributing to adverse coping mechanisms (e.g. alcohol consumption, drug use) (McIntosh & Rosselli, 2012). How someone copes with stress (threat appraisal) may contribute to health-promoting or health-damaging behaviors (Fife, Scott, Fineberg, & Zwickl, 2008). Hence, the quality of life of those managing HIV/AIDS remains a pressing concern. Findings from this study suggest that Lazarus and Folkman’s theoretical framework on the cognitive appraisal of threat could assist PLHIV and their caregivers in understanding the coping processes in PLHIV. For service providers, recognizing early threat appraisals and damaging coping mechanisms can be useful, especially for patients receiving an initial HIV diagnosis. For example, an understanding of the patient’s HIV appraisal can provide insight into the barriers to optimal care and adherence to ART and, potentially, help to reduce these barriers (Anderson, 1995). Furthermore, with the advancements of HIV medication, living with HIV has become a chronic condition, though as a stressor, it also poses long-term effects on the psychopathology of an individual living with HIV(McIntosh & Rosselli, 2012). Studies such as this study can help illuminate interventions aimed at reducing the psychological impact of HIV on a person’s life. For example, support groups have been developed and structured to provide social support and have been demonstrated to increase the perceived well-being among PLHIV (Hyde, Appleby, Weiss, Bailey, & Morgan, 2005). This has further expanded into the consideration of online-based support groups for PLHIV (Blackstock, Shah, Haughton, & Horvath, 2015). In another light, but still within psychosocial interventions for managing HIV infection, mindfulness meditation has been used pervasively in studies assessing its use as an intervention to reduce depression and perceived stress in people living with HIV in order to increase both physical and psychological health (Moskowitz etal., 2015). Interventions, such as mindful meditation, have risen as we understand more about appraisal pathways and coping strategies (such as seeking social support), and how they influence both physiological and psychological responses (Moskowitz etal., 2015) to affect the health of a person. Therefore, longitudinal research aimed toward management of the psychological and social consequences of HIV is central to promoting an accurate understanding of the quality of life for PLWH (Anderson, 1995).

Attachment to Church Congregation: Contributions to Well-Being over and above Social Support

Over the last three decades, research has established a strong link between attachment and well-being as well as social support and well-being. Past research found that attachment to church congregation predicted well-being over and above that predicted by attachment to God. However, it is unknown if attachment to church congregation predicts well-being over and above that predicted by social support. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to determine if attachment to church congregation could explain a portion of the variance in negative affect, positive affect, satisfaction with life, and daily spiritual experiences, beyond that explained by religious social support and perceived social support. The data from 201 participants indicated that religious social support, perceived social support, and attachment to church congregation each predicted different aspects of well-being. Only negative affect was predicted by attachment to church congregation beyond that predicted by social support. More research is needed to better understand the relationship between attachment to church congregation, social support, and well-being.