Study: Prayer doesn’t affect heart patients
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Staff said,
According to the AP, the study set up “three Christian groups” who were instructed to pray for a particular individual for a period leading up to surgery, and thereafter for two weeks. The prayer groups were given a first name and last initial. The prayer was for “a successful surgery with a quick, healthy recovery and no complications.”
Around 600 patience participated in the study.
“..patients who knew they were being prayed for had a slightly higher rate of complications.”
Interesting, but certainly not enough here to leap to any conclusions about whether or not God exists - despite the breathless reporting of the AP and other world media. Anyway, who designed this test?
Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer (STEP) in cardiac bypass patients: A multicenter randomized trial of uncertainty and certainty of receiving intercessory prayer
Benson H, Dusek JA, Sherwood JB, Lam P, Bethea CF, Carpenter W, Levitsky S, Hill PC, Clem Jr. DW, Jain MK, Drumel D, Kopecky SL, Mueller PS, Marek D, Rollins S, Hibberd PL
pages 934-942
The study itself is not available without subscription to ahjonline.com
The Templeton Foundation website was better prepared:
_________________________
OFFICIAL STATEMENT
The Largest Study of Third-Party Remote Intercessory Prayer Suggests
Prayer Not Effective in Reducing Complications Following Heart Surgery
The John Templeton Foundation was the major funder of the study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer (STEP). This project applied a large-scale controlled randomized research model to contribute to a growing number of scientific studies about prayer. Previous studies had attracted widespread public attention and discussion due to claims of positive health outcomes for distant intercessory prayer in which patients were unaware of being prayed for in the context of a research study.
Analysts, however, had pointed to methodological weaknesses calling these results into question. In view of both the empirical uncertainties and the potential significance of a non-null result, the Foundation’s advisory board advocated that substantial resources be put forth in order to advance methodological rigor in the design and execution of a new “blue ribbon standard” study. The results of the STEP project document the results of this experimental effort in a peer review journal.
The Foundation supports scientific rigor in all of its research-sponsorship endeavors and fully supports the findings as an example of the value of employing rigorous methodology in research on spiritual topics. Issues relating to the interpretation of the findings are discussed in an overview document which has been posted on this website since October 2002.
The Foundation encourages journalists and other interested persons to consider the various interpretive issues in depth. Prayer research is a fascinating topic and may well continue in additional modes to that presented as the outcome of the STEP project. However, the null results obtained by the methodologically rigorous STEP experiment appear to provide a clear and definitive contrasting result to an earlier published finding (Byrd study) of a positive effect for patient-blind distant intercessory prayer in a prayer experiment involving recovery of patients in a cardiac care unit.* Result: The STEP project did not confirm these findings.
* Note: The Byrd study also involved randomization to receive or not receive patient-blinded distant intercessory prayer.
FOUNDATION MISSION
The mission of the John Templeton Foundation is to pursue new insights at the boundary between theology and science through a rigorous, open-minded and empirically focused methodology, drawing together talented representatives from a wide spectrum of fields of expertise. Using “the humble approach,” the Foundation typically seeks to focus the methods and resources of scientific inquiry on topical areas which have spiritual and theological significance ranging across the disciplines from cosmology to healthcare. In the human sciences, the foundation supports programs, competitions, publications, and studies that promote character education and the exploration of positive values and purpose across the lifespan. It supports free enterprise education and development internationally through the Templeton Freedom Awards, new curriculum offerings, and other programs that encourage free-market principles.
_________________________
March 31, 2006 at 3:15 pm