There is need for a brief measure of religiosity that can be included in epidemiological surveys to examine relationships between religion and health outcomes. The Duke University Religion Index (DUREL) is a five-item measure of religious involvement, and was developed for use in large cross-sectional and longitudinal observational studies. The instrument assesses the three major dimensions of religiosity that were identified during a consensus meeting sponsored by the National Institute on Aging. Those three dimensions are organizational religious activity, non-organizational religious activity, and intrinsic religiosity (or subjective religiosity). The DUREL measures each of these dimensions by a separate “subscale”, and correlations with health outcomes should be analyzed by subscale in separate models. The overall scale has high test-retest reliability (intra-class correlation = 0.91), high internal consistence (Cronbach’s alpha’s = 0.78–0.91), high convergent validity with other measures of religiosity (r’s = 0.71–0.86), and the factor structure of the DUREL has now been demonstrated and confirmed in separate samples by other independent investigative teams. The DUREL has been used in over 100 published studies conducted throughout the world and is available in 10 languages.

This report summarizes the current evidence on the effects of yoga interventions on various components of mental and physical health, by focussing on the evidence described in review articles. Collectively, these reviews suggest a number of areas where yoga may well be beneficial, but more research is required for virtually all of them to firmly establish such benefits. The heterogeneity among interventions and conditions studied has hampered the use of meta-analysis as an appropriate tool for summarizing the current literature. Nevertheless, there are some meta-analyses which indicate beneficial effects of yoga interventions, and there are several randomized clinical trials (RCT’s) of relatively high quality indicating beneficial effects of yoga for pain-associated disability and mental health. Yoga may well be effective as a supportive adjunct to mitigate some medical conditions, but not yet a proven stand-alone, curative treatment. Larger-scale and more rigorous research with higher methodological quality and adequate control interventions is highly encouraged because yoga may have potential to be implemented as a beneficial supportive/adjunct treatment that is relatively cost-effective, may be practiced at least in part as a self-care behavioral treatment, provides a life-long behavioural skill, enhances self-efficacy and self-confidence and is often associated with additional positive side effects.

For many patients confronted with chronic diseases, spirituality/religiosity is a relevant resource to cope. While most studies on patients' spiritual needs refer to the care of patients at the end of life, our intention was to develop an instrument to measure spiritual, existential and psychosocial need of patients with chronic diseases. In an anonymous cross-sectional survey, we applied the Spiritual Needs Questionnaire (SpNQ version 1.2.) to 210 patients (75% women, mean age 54 ± 12 years) with chronic pain conditions (67%), cancer (28%), other chronic conditions (5%). Patients were recruited at the Community Hospital Herdecke, the Institute for Complementary Medicine (University of Bern), and at a conference of a cancer support group in Herten. Factor analysis of the 19-item instrument (Cronbach's alpha = .93) pointed to 4 factors which explain 67% of variance: Religious Needs, Need for Inner Peace, Existentialistic Needs (Reflection/Meaning), and Actively Giving. Within the main sample of patients with chronic pain and cancer, Needs for Inner Peace had the highest scores, followed by Self competent Attention; Existentialistic Needs had low scores, while the Religious Needs scores indicate no interest. Patients with cancer had significantly higher SpNQ scores than patients with chronic pain conditions. There were just some weak associations between Actively Giving and life satisfaction (r = .17; p = .012), and negatively with the symptom score (r = -.29; p < .0001); Need for Inner Peace was weakly associated with satisfaction with treatment efficacy (r = .24; p < .0001). Regression analyses reveal that the underlying disease (i.e., cancer) was of outstanding relevance for the patients' spiritual needs. The preliminary results indicate that spiritual needs are conceptually different from life satisfaction, and can be interpreted as the patients' longing for spiritual well-being. Methods how health care professionals may meet their patients' spiritual needs remain to be explored.