Frequent and regular church attendance as a religiousritual: further investigation of the relationship betweenpublic aspects of religiosity and obsessional symptoms

In examining the relationship between public acts of religiosity and obsessionalsymptoms, previous studies among nonclinical samples may have failed to make particularconsideration to those individuals who demonstrate higher levels of ritual in their public acts ofreligiosity. The present study sought to address these weaknesses by examining the relationshipbetween frequency of church attendance and obsessional symptoms, with particular reference inmaking the distinction between those individuals who show the highest levels of public ritual (church attendance) and those individuals who do not. Results among 574 USA, Northern Irelandand English adults (272 men, 302 women) show that persons attending church at least once aweek score significantly higher on a measure of obsessional symptoms than persons attendingchurch less frequently or not at all. It is argued that when examining the relationship betweenpublic aspects of religiosity and obsessional symptoms among nonclinical samples, that it maybe necessary to distinguish between those persons practicing religious acts more frequently andwith regularity and those individuals who do not.