Who benefits from Two Way Prayer Meditation? Treatment effect moderators in a pilot randomized controlled trial of a spiritual intervention for people with substance use disorders.

Background: Two Way Prayer Meditation (TWPM) is a spiritual intervention that holds promise for improving the psychospiritual well-being of individuals in recovery from substance use disorders (SUD). This study aimed to identify moderators of TWPM's treatment effects. Moderators tested included gender, race/ethnicity, age, education, religious/spiritual affiliation, and most often used substance. Methods: This study employed a randomized controlled trial design with pretest and posttest. In total, 134 adults in four residential recovery programs participated in the study and were randomly assigned to the TWPM group or the treatment as usual control group. Linear mixed modeling was used to assess the moderating effect of each hypothesized moderator in the form of interaction tests. Sensitivity analyses were conducted by excluding cases with more than a minimum number of missing items. Results: There were no significant moderators for psychological distress, self-esteem, and most of the spiritual well-being outcomes. Both the primary and sensitivity analyses showed education significantly moderated TWPM's effect on overall spirituality self-ranking. Specifically, TWPM's positive effect on overall spirituality self-ranking was greater in the master's degree subgroup than in the less than high school subgroup. Conclusion: TWPM's treatment effects on most outcomes were not found to vary by the tested participant characteristics. The only statistically significant finding suggests clinicians may need to adjust TWPM workshop/teaching content, delivery style, or language used to reach clients with lower levels of education. Future better-powered studies are recommended to continue exploring the potential moderating effects of race/ethnicity, education, spiritual/religious affiliation, and most often used substance.

Efficacy of two-way prayer meditation in improving the psychospiritual well-being of people with substance use disorders: A pilot randomized controlled trial.

Background: The study goal was to conduct a preliminary evaluation of a spiritual intervention called Two Way Prayer Meditation's (TWPM) effectiveness on the psychological distress, self-esteem, and spiritual well-being of people with substance use disorders. Methods: This study employed a randomized controlled trial design with pretest and posttest. In total, 134 adults in four residential recovery programs participated in the study and were randomly assigned to either the TWPM group or the treatment as usual group. Primary and sensitivity analyses were conducted using linear mixed modeling. Hedges's g was used to estimate treatment effect sizes. Results: Both primary and sensitivity analyses found significant treatment effects on daily spiritual experiences (Hedges's g = 0.62), reliance on God (g = 0.49), private religious practice (g = 0.36), and positive religious/spiritual coping (g = 0.68). Treatment effects on psychological distress (g = 0.33), self-esteem (g = 0.41), and overall spirituality self-ranking (g = 0.32) reached significance in the primary analysis but not in the sensitivity analysis. Conclusions: This study found evidence of TWPM's effectiveness in improving some aspects of the spiritual well-being of adults with substance use disorders. TWPM was also found to be promising in decreasing psychological distress and increasing self-esteem.

Spirituality/religiosity's influence on college students' adjustment to bereavement: A systematic review.

Bereavement is prevalent among college students and spirituality/religiosity may play an important role in their bereavement adjustment. This is the first systematic review to investigate the spirituality/religiosity's relationship with bereavement among college students. We searched 10 databases and screened 598 studies. Eight studies met the inclusion criteria. Findings suggested a favorable association of spirituality/religiosity with desirable bereavement adjustment outcomes (growth, spiritual wellbeing, and psychological wellbeing), but mixed association with undesirable bereavement outcomes (distress). We provided directions for future research to further investigate the complex relationship between spirituality/religiosity and bereavement and to refine the meaning-making coping model for the college student population.