New research explores the implications of religion and faith on quality of life for Black and white men with prostate cancer.
A new study from researchers in the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Department of Health, Behavior & Society suggests religious coping may bolster quality of life for men with prostate cancer.
The research, published online July 8 in Cancer Control, is one of the first to evaluate religious coping in a sample of Black and white men with prostate cancer. Black participants showed higher positive religious coping and lower quality of life. In the fully adjusted regression model, though, race had little significance – a phenomenon researchers attributed to marked socioeconomic gaps between the study’s Black and white participants.
In the U.S., prostate cancer is the second most common form of cancer among men. During 2017, over 207,000 new diagnoses of prostate cancer occurred in the U.S.
Prostate cancer can inflict significant damage upon patients’ physical, mental, and social health – from depression to urinary incontinence. Yet, survival rates are high. A 10-year survival rate of 98 percent makes quality of life critical to prostate cancer patients during and after treatment.
The disease disproportionately harms Black patients. Black men show greater incidence and mortality rates for prostate cancer than individuals of any other racial or ethnic background in the U.S.
“Finding solutions for the observed race disparities in prostate cancer is key to improving the lives of Black prostate cancer patients and achieving prostate cancer health equity,” says co-author Roland Thorpe, PhD, professor in the Bloomberg School’s Department of Health, Behavior and Society. He is the founding director of the Program for Research on Men’s Health in the Hopkins Center for Health Disparities Solutions.
In their new study, the research team, including Janice Bowie, PhD, a professor in the Bloomberg School’s Department of Health, Behavior and Society, assessed how religion shapes quality of life for Black and white men with prostate cancer.
Researchers obtained data from the Diagnosis and Decisions in Prostate Cancer Treatment Outcomes Study, consisting of 306 Black men and 316 white men aged 35 and above, who received prostate cancer diagnosis and treatment. Patients were recruited for the study between 2009 and 2011. To determine quality of life scores, researchers utilized the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Prostate (FACT-P) questionnaire.
They used two scales to gauge positive and negative religious coping. Agreement with statements like “I think about how my life is part of a larger spiritual force” evaluated positive religious coping, while statements like “I wonder whether God has abandoned me” evaluated negative religious coping.
Overall, the study found that positive religious coping correlated with higher quality of life, while negative religious coping correlated with decreased quality of life. Religion, the researchers suggested, may therefore represent an effective pathway to encourage effective coping among men with prostate cancer.
Researchers stressed the need for future studies calculating how religious coping influences prostate cancer’s onset and progression.
“Religious Coping and Quality of Life Among Black and White Men With Prostate Cancer” was written by Marino A. Bruce, PhD, MSRC, MDiv, Janice V. Bowie, PhD, MPH, Haley Barge, Bettina M. Beech, DrPH, MPH, Thomas A. LaVeist, PhD, Daniel L. Howard, PhD, Roland J. Thorpe, Jr, PhD.
Media contact: Lauren Padilla at lpadill3@jhu.edu.
