Religiosity and its Influence on Mental Health among the Youth in Urban Bengaluru

Background: In the young generation of India, majorly being college students have been exposed to various psychological disturbances due to external factors that could be academic stress, homesickness and social pressure. In this regard religiosity is evident to enhance the mental health of a person, though the association between religiosity and the spectrum of emotional states among the college youth remains underexplored. Objectives: This study aimed to examine the relationship between religiosity and mental health exploring how religiosity may influence emotional well-being. Methods: The study was conducted as a cross-sectional study with 181 participants from Bengaluru, through convenience sampling. The level of religiosity was determined with the help of The Duke University Religion Index (DUREL), and the level of psychological distress was determined using Depression Anxiety Stress Scale-21 (DASS-21). To compare religiosity and emotional states by gender, the Mann-Whitney U test was used while Spearman correlation test was used to test the relationship between religiosity and emotional states. Results: The study comprised 90 male participants (49.7%) and 91 female participants (50.3%) with a mean age of 21.6 (SD = 2.28). There were no statistically significant differences between females and males regarding religiosity (p = 0. 35), or emotional states (p = .064). The results revealed a negative relationship between religiosity and psychological distress (Spearman’s rho – 0.222), suggesting that religiousness is inversely related to psychological distress. Conclusions: There is growing evidence that religiosity has a positive influence on mental health, and it seems that increased religiosity results in reduced psychological distress in both male and female participants. These results imply that there are positive implications of spiritual practices for mental health among youths.