Anxiety and Spirituality During COVID-19

Emma Winfree

                                     Anxiety and Spirituality During COVID-19

 

            During the pandemic, I would think it is safe to say we all felt at least some anxiety about what was to come and what the future was going to look like. As a student, I was mainly concerned about myself and my family members staying healthy. Healthcare workers, on the other hand, had all of that to worry about, as well as keeping their patients healthy. A study was conducted in two different hospitals in Nigeria. These studies focused on the healthcare workers, about half of them being nurses. These health care workers were questioned, using a questionnaire, on their anxiety about the Coronavirus, as well as their socio-demographics and their spirituality and religiousness. I found this study intriguing after talking to many healthcare workers during the pandemic and their anxiety levels being at an all-time high. The pandemic took a toll on all healthcare workers, and still is. 

            The study was conducted on 92 males and 160 females. The median age of these participants was 40 years old. The two different hospitals were used as a cross-sectional study to show the differences in the anxiety levels of the spiritual workers versus the non-spiritual workers. According to the study, “spirituality is inversely correlated with anxiety among nurses and other non-heath workers” (Davis et al., 2003). The article talks about spirituality not only being a coping strategy in times of need, but it also being an “instinctive and inexpensive resource” to help improve their coping capacities. 

            In another study, it was found that spiritual well-being was a significant predictor of death anxiety (Rababa et al., 2021). Death anxiety usually occurs in older adults when they ultimately fear dying. Death anxiety hit an all-time high during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study insinuates that the more spiritual an individual is, the less death anxiety they will have. There is also a correlation between one’s sociodemographic, religious coping and lower levels of death anxiety.

 

Akanni, Oluyemi O., et al. “Relationship between Spirituality and Anxiety during the COVID-19 Pandemic: a Survey of the Staff of Two Nigerian Tertiary Hospitals.” Mental Health, Religion & Culture, vol. 24, no. 7, 2021, pp. 647–658., https://doi.org/10.1080/13674676.2020.1870218.

 

Rababa, Mohammad, et al. “Correction to: Association of Death Anxiety with Spiritual Well‑Being and Religious Coping in Older Adults During the COVID‑19 Pandemic.” Journal of Religion and Health, vol. 60, no. 1, 2021, pp. 64–64., https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-021-01181-1.