Frequent and regular church attendance as a religious ritual: further investigation of the relationship between public aspects of religiosity and obsessional symptoms

In examining the relationship between public acts of religiosity and obsess ional symptoms, previous studies among nonclinical samples may have failed to make particular consideration to those individuals who demonstrate highe r levels of ritual in their public acts of religiosity. The present study s ought to address these weaknesses by examining the relationship between fre quency of church attendance and obsessional symptoms, with particular refer ence in making the distinction between those individuals who show the highe st levels of public ritual (church attendance) and those individuals who do not. Results among 574 USA, Northern Ireland and English adults (272 men, 302 women) show that persons attending church at least once a week score si gnificantly higher on a measure of obsessional symptoms than persons attend ing church less frequently or not at all. It is argued that when examining the relationship between public aspects of religiosity and obsessional symp toms among nonclinical samples, that it may be necessary to distinguish bet ween those persons practicing religious acts more frequently and with regul arity and those individuals who do not. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd, All rights reserved.