is prayer by people for patients they have never met. The STEP trial divided bypass patients into a group that received prayer and a group that did not, without their knowing, and a third group told with certainty that people were praying for them. What separated them?
The prayer changed nothing, and the knowing did. Complication rates in the two groups who did not know were almost identical, so the prayer itself did not move them. of receiving prayer was linked to more complications instead, which is the opposite of what anyone expected.
First it is worth saying what was tested here and what was not. The trial is not about the meaning of prayer, the comfort it gives or its role in a community. It tests one narrow claim: whether prayer by strangers changes a measurable medical outcome.
This was , built to isolate exactly that. One thousand eight hundred and two bypass patients in six hospitals were divided into three groups. Those who received prayer and did not know, those who did not receive it and did not know, and those who received it and knew with certainty. , fixed in advance, was any complication within thirty days.
The answer to the central question is negative: the prayer itself did not change the complication rate. The two groups who did not know resembled each other.
The finding that draws attention is the third. Those who knew for certain that people were praying for them suffered more complications. The explanation offered is stress: a patient who knows a special prayer was arranged for them may conclude their condition is serious. That is an interpretation rather than a conclusion, and it may be a chance result. And like any trial, it tested one form of prayer and one measure, and no more than that.
wat. Among the 1,201 patients who did not know whether anyone prayed for them, the complication rate was almost the same in both groups.
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The trial separates the personal or communal meaning of prayer from a measurable medical claim about physical recovery.
How do we know?
This was a blinded trial: 1,802 patients in six hospitals were assigned to three groups, and the main outcome was any complication within thirty days of surgery.
What is still unknown
A medical trial can test only the outcome it defined and the form of prayer it examined. It does not examine the spiritual meaning of prayer for believers.
Learn something?
Where to next
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Does a placebo still work if you are told up front that it is one?medicine
Which animal grows a whole leg back, bone and nerves included?medicine