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Sick patients who became pessimistic about their religious faith were associated with having a higher risk of mortality. Specifically, patients who said they felt ``unloved by God'' and ''attributed their illness to the devil'' were found to have a 19 to 28 percent increase in the risk of dying within two years.

The researchers questioned the patients about how they were using religion to cope with the stress of a medical illness. Negative religious feelings included feeling ``abandoned or punished by God'' or ``questioning God's love.'' The patients were followed for up to two years.

The study included 596 patients over the age 55 who had been hospitalized for various illnesses at Duke Hospital or the VA Medical Center in Durham between January 1996 and March 1997. The vast majority of the patients were of Christian faith.

The investigators controlled other factors that could have influenced these results such as depression, severity of illness, gender, age, and quality of life. However, the researchers acknowledged that the findings could also be explained by other factors, such as feelings of alienation arising from religious struggle.

According to the Annals of Internal Medicine (2001;161:1881-1885), the study was funded by the Retirement Research Foundation in Chicago, Illinois. Information provided is courtesy of and compiled by the Academy of Anti-Aging Research.