Adult patients reported significant pain and anxiety relief after five minutes of in-person prayer, as indicated by a randomized controlled trial. Researchers from the University of Maryland School of Medicine compared the effects of direct prayer to those of listening to music. The study found that prayer offered greater and more sustained relief.

“Prayer is powerful and beneficial on many levels,” said Jesse Bradley, pastor of Grace Community Church in Washington. The study highlighted that 43% of Americans rely on prayer as a form of complementary medicine.

Proximal Intercessory Prayer (PIP)

Researchers investigated a practice called proximal intercessory prayer (PIP). This involves face-to-face prayer directed at another person’s well-being. Participants’ self-reported pain and anxiety levels were tracked at multiple intervals: immediately after the session, at two weeks, and at six weeks.

For the study, 180 adult patients in a family medicine waiting room joined the research. All of them had previously experienced moderate to severe pain, anxiety, or both. After routine medical appointments, they were randomly assigned to either the prayer group or the music group. The prayer group received in-person Christian prayer from a trained volunteer for five minutes, whereas the music group listened to music for the same duration.

Findings and Impact

The study, published in The Annals of Family Medicine, showed that participants in both groups experienced improvements. However, the prayer group reported significantly greater relief. Assistant Professor Katherine Jacobson noted that 97% of participants felt neutral or supportive about including prayer in their medical visits.

Prayer had a notable impact on pain reduction, with patients reporting decreased pain intensity immediately after the session. This relief continued to be substantial during the two-week follow-up when compared to the music group.

For anxiety, the benefits of prayer were longer-lasting. Participants reported significant anxiety reductions immediately after prayer, and these effects were statistically significant at both the two-week and six-week intervals.

“We expected that patients who expected prayer to work would benefit more, but that wasn’t what we found,” Jacobson said. “Benefits appeared across a wide range of patients, including those not of the Christian faith and those who did not expect the intervention to help them.”

The research team acknowledged some limitations, such as the inability to prove prayer itself caused the improvements. The human contact aspect during prayer, such as eye contact and gentle touch, might also have contributed to pain reduction.

Future Implications

Researchers suggest PIP could serve as an effective, low-cost complement to standard medical care, rather than replacing traditional treatments. They plan to conduct future studies with a control group receiving interpersonal contact without prayer.

Physicians and health systems are encouraged to consider patients’ spiritual care preferences as part of comprehensive care. Incorporating trained Christian volunteer prayer practitioners in outpatient settings could be beneficial for interested patients.