Friday, August 12, 2005
Is prayer effective as a painkiller?
Americans have found a no-cost painkiller they say is as effective as prescription drugs: prayer.
More than half of those who responded to a USA TODAY/ABC News/Stanford University Medical Center poll released Monday say they use prayer to control pain. Of those,
- 90% say it worked well, and
- 51% say "very well."
Among a dozen therapies, including bed rest, massage and herbal remedies, only prescription drugs were as successful as prayer in easing pain:
- 89% report that such drugs work well and
- 51% say "very well."
This comes as no surprise to preachers and doctors who say they have seen the way personal faith can influence a patient's reaction to all kinds of pain, psychological or physical.
Columbia University psychologist Richard Sloan says it has more to do with the power of distraction than the power of prayer.
"If you try to distract yourself by focusing on something else -- prayer or something else -- I do think it works," he says. "I don't think it's anything special about prayer. It's any kind of mental activity that serves to distract you from the pain-producing circumstances."
Hundreds of papers have been published on the possible link between faith and health, but scientifically, "it's very hard to measure," says John Tarpley, professor of surgery at Vanderbilt University.
Pain, in particular, is subjective and can be influenced by a variety of factors that are difficult to assess by scientific standards.
"What we have to worry about is the difference between showing association and causation," says Tarpley, who teaches a class on spirituality and medicine at Vanderbilt.
For some deeply religious people, pain can be redemptive, but faith also can carry an extra burden.
"In African-American belief, (often) pain is part of what we are expected to endure," says Glenda Hodges, director of a course in spirituality and medicine at Howard University's College of Medicine.
Harold Koenig, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Duke University says that faith and medicine "work beautifully together. Just praying alone doesn't work as well as if you're (also) taking your morphine."
Koenig and colleagues reported last month in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease that among sickle cell patients, those who go to church at least once a week had the lowest pain scores.
"People who are more involved with religious organizations seem to be able to cope with stress," Koenig says.
By Anita Manning
USA TODAY
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