Hrm, what the article doesn't say is how the tests were carried out.
I'd personally have wanted first to double-blind it (patients either told that they were or weren't being prayed for, and half of each of those groups being actually prayed for or not, to separate out any difference between being prayed for, and believing oneself to be prayed for) - and also to take into account a patient's personal belief in the power of prayer (I'd say intuitively that someone who doesn't believe prayer will make a difference is less likely to be affected by being prayed for)
Whether prayer itself makes a difference, I'll keep an open mind - but if it gives hope & encouragement to a patient, I wouldn't be suprised if *that* had an effect!
It was double-blind: "748 patients undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention or elective catheterisation in nine USA centres were assigned in a 2×2 factorial randomisation either off-site prayer by established congregations of various religions or no off-site prayer (double-blinded) and MIT therapy or none (unmasked)." The Lancet
I would imagine that a study design that got accepted for publication in the Lancet would have been double-blinded. I think the whole point of the study was to try and eliminate the placebo effect. They may not have known it was to do with prayer at all.
Surely we might be interested in the effect of prayer as compared with a placebo, though - i.e. not double blind, because we want to know what the power of faith is?
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I'd personally have wanted first to double-blind it (patients either told that they were or weren't being prayed for, and half of each of those groups being actually prayed for or not, to separate out any difference between being prayed for, and believing oneself to be prayed for) - and also to take into account a patient's personal belief in the power of prayer (I'd say intuitively that someone who doesn't believe prayer will make a difference is less likely to be affected by being prayed for)
Whether prayer itself makes a difference, I'll keep an open mind - but if it gives hope & encouragement to a patient, I wouldn't be suprised if *that* had an effect!
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"748 patients undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention or elective catheterisation in nine USA centres were assigned in a 2×2 factorial randomisation either off-site prayer by established congregations of various religions or no off-site prayer (double-blinded) and MIT therapy or none (unmasked)."
The Lancet
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