Effect of Prayer on Conditioned Pain Modulation and on Pain Intensity in Healthy Religious University Students

Antonine University

Status: Completed

Conditions: Healthy Subjects

Treatments: Behavioral: Reading a poem; Behavioral: Prayer

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT04614272

charbel najem

Details and patient eligibility

About

With this study the investigators wish to examine the effect of prayer on pain intensity and on the conditioned pain modulation in healthy religious university students.

Full description

There has been a call for a model that incorporate spirituality in the biopsychosocial framework .The biopsychosocial- spiritual model recognizes the impact of the religious factors in modulating the biology of pain.

The aim of this study is to measure the effect of praying as an intervention on conditioned pain modulation and on pain intensity.

The investigators hypothesize that prayer would increase conditioned pain modulation compared to a no prayer control group in a healthy religious population.

The investigators hypothesize that participants engaging in active prayer will show a higher increase in conditioned pain modulation compared to those engaging in passive prayer or no prayer.

The present study is a randomized controlled trial comparing the effect of two types of prayer, the passive and the active prayer and no prayer, on conditioned pain modulation using the heat protocol and on pain intensity. Participants are to be randomly assigned to 2 groups: the prayer group and the control group.

The control group is of (n=50) participants and the prayer group is (n=150) participants to be divided according to the style of praying identified by the prayer function scale into active and passive prayer group.

Appropriate statistical analyses will be performed to evaluate and compare treatment effects.

Enrollment: 208 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 25 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Healthy female.
• Healthy male.
• University students
• Religious participants who would score at least two over six on the Non Organizational Religious Activities subscale of the Duke University Religious Index.

Exclusion criteria

• Pregnant women.
• Individuals with chronic pain.
• Individuals with psychiatric disease.
• Individuals suffering from headache for more than 2 days a month.
• Individuals with high blood pressure.
• Individuals under regular use of medication.
• Individuals who would score 1 or 0 on the on the Non Organizational Religious Activities subscale of the Duke University Religious Index.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Screening

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Double Blind

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208 participants in 3 patient groups

active prayer group

Experimental group

Description:

the active prayer group will mediate over an active type of prayer

Treatment:

Behavioral: Prayer

passive prayer group

Experimental group

Description:

the passive prayer group will mediate over a passive type of prayer

Treatment:

Behavioral: Prayer

control group

Sham Comparator group

Description:

the control group will read a poem

Treatment:

Behavioral: Reading a poem