Religious hope, but not a general sense of hope, is associated with change in chronic conditions over time

Many studies examine the relationship between religion and health with cross-sectional data. Using data that were gathered at two points in time, the purpose of the current study is to see if involvement in religion is associated with the course of illness over time. The core measure of religion in this study is a religious sense of hope. Data were also gathered on a general (i.e., overall) sense of hope. The physical health outcome measure is a simple count of the number of chronic conditions that currently affect study participants. All the participants in this study were at least 18 years of age. The data are from a nationwide longitudinal survey that was conducted in the United States ( N = 573). The results indicate that religious hope, but not a general sense of hope, is associated with change in the number of chronic conditions over time.