The Relationship Between Religious Orientation and Psychological Distress Symptoms

Cyprus Turkish Journal of Psychiatry & Psychology Vol.7 Issue.2

Doi:10.35365/ctjpp.25.2.01

RESEARCH ARTICLE / ARAŞTIRMA YAZISI

The Relationship Between Religious Orientation and Psychological Distress Symptoms

Dini Yönelim ve Psikolojik Sıkıntı Belirtileri Arasındaki İlişkiler

Gönül Taşçıoğlu¹, Fatma Gül Cirhinlioğlu², Ebru Tansel³

Öz:

The aim of this study is to determine the relationships between religious orientations and symptoms of psychological distress. The study was carried out with 341 adult female and 236 adult male participants residing in the TRNC. Personal Information Form, Religious Orientation Scale (ROS, Allport and Ross, 1967) and Symptom Checklist-90 (SCL-90, Derogatis, et al., 1973) were used to collect research data. The Independent sample t-test was used to compare SCL-90 scores according to the participants’ intrinsic and extrinsic religious orientation. There is a statistically significant difference between the scores of the participants with low and high intrinsic orientation in the SCL-90 and in the sub-dimensions of Interpersonal Sensitivity, Anxiety, Phobic Anxiety, Paranoid Ideation and Psychoticism. Interpersonal Sensitivity, Anxiety, Phobic Anxiety, Paranoid Ideation and Psychoticism and general scores of the participants whose intrinsic orientation scores were in the last 27% (higher) were found to be significantly higher than those in the first 27% (lower). Independent sample t-test results comparing SCL-90 scores according to participants’ extrinsic orientation showed that there were statistically significant differences between the scores of participants with low and high extrinsic orientation on the SCL-90 and the Interpersonal Sensitivity, Phobic Anxiety, Paranoid Ideation and Psychoticism subscales. The Interpersonal Sensitivity, Phobic Anxiety, Paranoid Ideation and Psychoticism and General symptom scores of the participants whose extrinsic orientation scores were in the last 27% (high) were found to be significantly higher than the participants whose extrinsic orientation scores were in the first 27% (low). The findings were discussed in the light of the literature.

Keywords: Religious orientation, Symptoms of psychological distress, Islam.

¹Asst. Prof. Dr., University of Kyrenia, Department of Psychology, Kyrenia, TRN Cyprus, E-mail: [email protected], Orcid Id: 0000-0001-7334-9586

²Prof. Dr., Cyprus Health and Social Sciences University, Department of Psychology, Morphou, TRN Cyprus, E-mail: [email protected], Orcid Id: 0000-0002-1140-2043

³Prof. Dr., Cyprus Health and Social Sciences University, Department of Psychology, Morphou, TRN Cyprus, E-mail: [email protected], Orcid Id: 0000-0002-6106-5911

Address of Correpondence/Yazışma Adresi: Gönül Taşcıoğlu, University of Kyrenia, Şehit Yahya Bakır Street, Karakum 99320, Kyrenia TRNC, [email protected]

Date of Received/Geliş Tarihi: 12.11.2024, Date of Revision/Düzeltme Tarihi: 18.03.2025, Date of Acceptance/Kabul Tarihi: 18.03.2025, Date of Online Publication/Çevirimiçi Yayın Tarihi: 14.05.2025

Citing/Referans Gösterimi: Taşçıoğlu, G., Cirhinlioğlu, F. G. & Tansel, E. (2025). The Relationship Between Religious Orientation and Psychological Distress Symptoms. Cyprus Turkish Journal of Psychiatry & Psychology, 7(2), 114-122

© 2025 The Author(s). Published by Cyprus Mental Health Institute / Cyprus Turkish Journal of Psychiatry and Psychology (www.ktppdergisi.com). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/