Benson, H.; Dusek, J.A.; and Sherwood, J.B.

¶ … Benson, H.; Dusek, J.A.; and Sherwood, J.B. "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." American Heart Journal. Vol. 151 (2005): 934-42. Reported by Carey,

in "Long-Awaited Medical Study Questions the Power of Prayer" The New

York Times, (March 31, 2006). Retrieved March 12, 2011 from:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/31/health/31pray.html

Intercessory prayer in medicine is the use of prayer to divine powers to assist and benefit the welfare of patients in clinical circumstances. Various studies have produced conflicting results with some purporting to demonstrate a benefit toward positive clinical outcomes and other concluding that the act of praying for medical patients is useless. This study sought to examine the issue empirically through a formal quantitative analysis designed to compare the medical outcomes of surgery patients who received intercessory prayer and those who did not.

Statistical Procedures Used in the Study

The patients selected for the study were all pre-scheduled for elective coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery. The results of their recovery over the initial 30-days following surgery and compared. Their respective recovery was measured in terms of their relative rates of post-surgical complications, their relative rates of major post-surgical medical events, and their respective mortality rates. The first group of patient-subjects were unknowing recipients of intercessory prayer. The second group of patient-subjects received no intercessory prayer and they were never informed about whether or not they would be recipients of intercessory prayer. The third group of patient-subjects received both intercessory prayer and information that someone would be praying on their behalf. The prayers on behalf of the two patient-subject groups receiving intercessory prayer were delivered by members of a local religious group who agreed to add a request to their usual prayers asking that the patients on their lists be blessed with "successful surgery with a quick, healthy recovery and no complications." Those prayers were delivered daily for two weeks beginning on the evening before the scheduled surgery.

The statistical basis of the study was predicated on the known post-operative complication rate of approximately fifty percent 50% of patients experience post-operative CABG surgery complications within the first thirty days of surgery. That general statistic provided the basis of the initial assumption that complication rates would be approximately fifty percent among the patient-subjects in the second group, who received no prayers and who were not expecting prayer. The researchers postulated that a complication rate differential of ten percent or more in this group would be considered statistically significant. Specifically, complication rates of forty percent or less would be considered to support the hypothesis that intercessory prayers had benefited surgical outcome in this group.

With respect to the patient-subject group receiving (and expecting to receive) intercessory prayer, the researchers postulated that a complication rate differential of twenty percent or more in this group would be considered statistically significant. Specifically, complication rates of thirty percent or less would be considered to support the hypothesis that intercessory prayers had benefited surgical outcome in this group. The stricter burden of statistical significance was predicated on the need to counter the potentially beneficial effect of the expectation of receiving prayer on the part of the patient-subjects.

In principle, that method of guarding against the influence of external independent variables was appropriate. However, it represents a purely arbitrary choice on the part of the researchers that presupposes that the influence of expectation on outcome would be approximately ten percent. Naturally, that limitation would be most important if the differential between the two groups very nearly approached the arbitrary ten-percent threshold.

Experimental Results

The findings were statistically significant because the group of patient-subjects experiencing the highest rate of post-surgical complications (59%) were those who both expected and received intercessory prayer. Patient-subjects who received intercessory prayer without expecting it suffered the second highest rate of post-surgical complications (52%), which was approximately what would be expected based on general statistics about CABG surgical recovery. Finally, patient-subjects who had no prior expectation of receiving prayers and who did not receive intercessory prayer suffered the lowest rate of post-surgical complications (51%), which was also approximately the same as what would be generally expected statistically in connection with CABG surgery generally.

Assessment of Statistical Significance

The only conceivable statistical significance of the study is that there is likely no benefit to the practice of praying for the welfare of patients in this setting and circumstance. That conclusion is logically based on the fact that the patients who received intercessory prayer did not suffer any fewer post-surgical complications. However, the greatest source of doubt about the statistical significance of the findings is based on the admission by the researchers that they have no hypothesis to explain the fact that patient-subjects expecting and receiving intercessory prayer suffered a statistically significant incidence of post-surgical complication than other patients not receiving intercessory prayer or patient neither expecting nor receiving any such prayers.

Conceptual Criticism

The entire prospect of testing the statistical significance of intercessory prayer by this methodology was highly flawed at the outset for several reasons. First, the researcher themselves presumed that even patient-subjects in the groups not receiving the assigned intercessory prayer would nevertheless be prayed for by someone in their families and social network. Likewise, even patient-subjects in the group not expecting any prayers also probably expected that someone in their families or social network would, nevertheless, be praying for them. Therefore, at best, the results of the study were only statistically significant with respect to the potential beneficial effects of supplementary intercessory prayer.