Church goers less likely to commit suicide: study

By Frank Stirk  |  B.C. Correspondent

Marja Bergen says faith helps her deal with her depression. PHOTO: FRANK STIRK

VANCOUVER, BC—Regular church-goers are less likely to attempt suicide, a new study suggests.

"We found that people who attend [a place of worship] are half as likely to have reported a suicide attempt in the past year," says Daniel Rasic, a psychiatrist at the University of Manitoba.

Rasic's research team based their findings on their analysis of data taken from Statistics Canada's Canadian Community Health Survey of almost 37,000 respondents.

Researchers also found church attendance reduced the likelihood of attempted suicides even when they factored out the influence of social supports, such as people who can offer information and advice, affection and love or just a listening ear.

"The common thinking was: you go to church and you automatically have a support group, and that people with good support groups are less likely to commit suicide," says Rasic, currently a resident at Dalhousie University in Halifax.

"We've shown that there's also something about the place. There's still a decreased rate of suicide outside of the social supports."

The study does not try to explain why this occurs. Rasic offers two possibilities—that most religions teach against suicide, and that studies show people who are religious from a young age are less likely to develop a mental illness, such as depression, later in life.

"Depression is quite strongly associated with attempted suicide," he says.

But Burnaby church-goer and author Marja Bergen, who has struggled for years with depression and bipolar disorder, believes the real answer lies in the personal relationship that anyone can have with God, regardless of their mental state.

"There's something about the kind of people that make a decision to go and worship God," she says. "What matters to them is not necessarily the people around them, but their connection with God. And then there's all the things that go with worship—the prayer, the singing, being part of a community of faith as you worship together."

Bergen adds, "I know I do feel suicidal once in a while, but I've never gone as far as trying anything, because my faith has given me a lot of meaning in life."

The researchers also found that the rate of attempted suicide did not decrease among people who called themselves "spiritual" but did not adhere to any organized religion.

The study is published in the Journal of Affective Disorders.