Religion, spirituality and belief: Mental health
The Scottish Health Survey Topic Report on Equality Groups (2012) reported estimates of mental health and wellbeing. The report uses the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale (WEMWBS) and the General Health Questionnaire 12 (GHQ-12). A high score on the GHQ-12 indicates a possible psychiatric disorder. Both measures are self-reported.
The report found that:
- Those reporting their religion as Hindu reported the highest levels of positive mental wellbeing, though this was not significantly different from the Scottish average.
- Levels of positive mental health were lower than average for Roman Catholics while those reporting their religion as Other Christian had slightly higher than average mental wellbeing.
- Those reporting their religion as Hindu or Church of Scotland had a significantly lower proportion of high GHQ-12 scores than the Scottish average.
- Roman Catholics were more likely to have a high score on the GHQ-12, than those reporting Church of Scotland as their religion.
- Muslims had the highest proportion of GHQ-12 scores, but this was not significantly different to the national Scottish average.
Estimates of levels of self-assessed health are also available from the Scotland’s Census Data Explorer.
Please note: If you require the most up-to-date data available, please check the data sources directly as new data may have been published since these data pages were last updated. Although we endeavour to ensure that the data pages are kept up-to-date, there may be a time lag between new data being published and the relevant ScotPHO web pages being updated.
