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

Abstract

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.

Keywords:

• Prayer
• substance use disorders
• psychological distress
• self-esteem
• spiritual well-being
• RCT

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the participating recovery programs’ staff who assisted in the study implementation and the clients who participated in the study.

Disclosure statement

The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of these organizations. The funding organizations had no role in the design and conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of the data; preparation, review, or approval of the manuscript; and decision to submit the manuscript for publication.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by the award/fellowship awarded to Audrey Hang Hai by the Waggoner Center for Alcoholism and Addiction Research at The University of Texas at Austin (Bruce/Jones Graduate Fellowship) and the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health (Frances Fowler Wallace Fellowship Award).