The effect of religious beliefs and practice of buddhism on disability in office workers with chronic low back pain

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between the religious beliefs and practices of Buddhism and disability and psychological stress in office workers with chronic LBP. A cross-sectional survey was conducted with a self-administered questionnaire delivered by hand to 475 office workers with chronic LBP. Saliva samples were collected from a randomly selected sub-sample of respondents. Two hierarchical regression models were built to determine how much variance in disability and psychological stress could be explained by religious beliefs and practices of Buddhism variables after controlling for potential confounders variables. Participating office workers with chronic LBP had low disability level. Only 3% of variance in disability and 7% of variance in psychological stress was accounted for by the religious beliefs and practices of Buddhism. Those who engaged in Buddhist lifestyles experienced greater disability but had lower psychological stress. Depressive symptoms were attributed to both psychological stress and disability status in our study population. It is hypothesised that high disability due to LBP prompts individuals to increase the frequency of their religious behavior, which in turn leads to lower psychological stress. Depression may be a mediator of the effect of psychological stress on disability in patients with chronic LBP. More research is needed to investigate the long-term effect of reduced psychological stress on disability level in chronic pain patients.