Religion, Stress and Well-being

The aim is to study stress and well-being in the light of religion and meaning-making in Swedish health care.

One subproject explores to what degree existential issues are used in designing treatment and prevention strategies, and will analyse the causal pathways between meaning-making contexts, religious or existential beliefs, stress-related disorders and wellbeing.

The study shows that both the individual's use of existential and spiritual-based coping strategies as well as workplace acceptance of spirituality, helps to reduce work-related stress. Organizations need to develop their strategy for integrating existential issues in the overall personnel policy. The results are presented in:

Arnetz BB, Ventimiglia M, Beech P, DeMarinis V Löök J, Arnetz JE: "Spiritual values ​​and practices in the workplace and employee stress and mental well-being", Journal of Management, Spirituality, and Religion, 2013 (In Press).

Currently is studied the relationship between beliefs, perceived discrimination and mental health among Iraqi refugees compared to ordinary immigrants to the U.S. from the Middle East.
Participating researcher: Bengt Arnetz