Religiosity and Psychological Well-Being: Evidence from a Cross-Sectional Study of Muslim University Students

Abstract

Religion holds a primary place in social and cultural life of Muslim societies and still influences the way people perceive psychological suffering and well-being. Using sociological approaches that understand religiosity as a sociocultural coping tool, this paper will explore the relationship between participation in Islamic religious activities and mental health among Muslim higher education students in Pakistan. The quantitative, cross-sectional type of research design was used, and a group of 150 students enrolled at the University of Sargodha was invigilated using a structured questionnaire to measure their religious practices and self-reported psychological well-being. Reliability analysis revealed that internal consistency was reasonable (Cronbach’s α =.72). Correlation Pearson and simple linear regression analyses were performed using SPSS. The results indicate a statistically significant positive correlation between religiosity and mental health (r = .33, p <.001), and the result of religiosity determines 10.8% of the variance of the mental health outcomes (R² =.108). These findings indicate that religious involvement acts as an effective, albeit incomplete coping tool to psychological health among Muslim youth. The contribution of the study to sociological literature is that everyday religious practices play a culturally constructed role in subjective mental health construction, but religiosity does not replace an overall structural support and professional mental health services.