Psychological and Spiritual Well-Being Among Church of England Clergy and Laity three years After the COVID-19 Lockdowns

Village, A. and Francis, L.J. (2025) Psychological and Spiritual Well-Being Among Church of England Clergy and Laity three years After the COVID-19 Lockdowns. Journal of Religion and Health. ISSN 0022-4197

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Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns caused declines in psychological wellbeing among both clergy and lay people in the Church of England. This study uses a convenience sample of 3,826 clergy and lay people from the Church 2024 survey to examine perceived changes in psychological and spiritual wellbeing since the end of the 2021 lockdown. For most people negative affect either remained the same or decreased, and positive affect and spiritual wellbeing remained the same or increased, between 2021 and 2024. Analyses of scores for The Index of Balanced Affect Change (TIBACh) and the Spiritual Wellbeing Change Scale (SWCS) suggested that these improvements were not universal, and for some wellbeing may have changed little, or deteriorated between 2021 and 2024. Those that suffered most during the pandemic may have seen the greatest improvement after it ended, especially for younger people, stipendiary clergy, and men compared to women.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Published by Springer in 2025. This is an author accepted manuscript of a published open access article available at https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-025-02412-5. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy.
Keywords:	balanced affect clergy COVID-19 lockdowns lay people psychological wellbeing spiritual wellbeing
Depositing User:	Ursula Mckenna
Date Deposited:	13 Oct 2025 13:45
Last Modified:	13 Oct 2025 13:45
URI:	https://lbro.repository.guildhe.ac.uk/id/eprint/1268

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