Religious/spiritual struggles and whole person functioning among Colombian university students: Longitudinal evidence of mutual influence

This prospective study examined the primary, secondary and complex conceptual models of religious/spiritual struggles with 18 indicators of whole person functioning across five domains: psychological well‐being, psychological distress, social well‐being, physical well‐being and character. We used three waves of longitudinal data (Wave 1: August/September 2021, Wave 2: October/November 2021, Wave 3: February 2022) from Colombian university students (N = 2878, Mage = 20.88 ± 4.05 years). Adjusting for covariates assessed in Wave 1, our primary analysis applied the analytic templates for outcome‐wide and lagged exposure‐wide designs to estimate two sets of lagged linear regression models. Religious/spiritual struggles in Wave 2 were associated with a small‐to‐medium‐sized decline in subsequent functioning on 17/18 indicators in Wave 3, and worse functioning on 16/18 indicators in Wave 2 was associated with very small‐to‐medium‐sized increases in subsequent religious/spiritual struggles in Wave 3. The results provided evidence in favour of the complex conceptual model for 16/18 indicators of whole person functioning. Our findings extend existing evidence on the reciprocal association between religious/spiritual struggles and individual functioning to a wide range of indicators, reinforcing the need for practitioners to consider the dynamic interplay between religious/spiritual struggles and individual functioning as they work with younger populations.