Personal Religiosity and Mental Health Care Utilization among Adolescents

This study set out to examine whether personal religiosity was in any way associated with adolescents’ propensity to seek out formal mental health care.

Using the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), this study uses logistic regression models to test for an association between personal religiosity and mental health services use net of depressive symptomology and demographic controls.

Results showed a negative, statistically significant relationship between personal religiosity and mental health services use. Highly religious adolescents had lower odds of having seen a mental health professional compared to their less religious counterparts even after controlling for depressive symptomology.

Data restrictions required that we limit our analysis to one specific form of mental health services: talk therapy. Nevertheless, this study suggests that religiosity represents a potentially important consideration in addressing the mental health needs of adolescents.

To our knowledge, this is the first study in which a nationally representative sample of adolescents is used to examine the relationship between personal religiosity and mental health services use.