Five-minute session of proximal intercessory prayer eases primary care pain and anxiety

A randomized controlled trial conducted at the University of Maryland School of Medicine has found that a five-minute session of proximal intercessory prayer (PIP) - in-person prayer offered by a trained volunteer - significantly reduced pain and anxiety in primary care patients compared to a music control group. The findings, published in the May/June 2026 issue of Annals of Family Medicine, suggest that proximal intercessory prayer may offer a practical, non-pharmacologic complement to conventional care, particularly for underserved populations.

Researchers enrolled 180 patients from a university family medicine practice who reported clinically significant pain (having a score ≥4 on a 0–10 scale) or anxiety (as measured on the GAD-7 scale). After their medical appointments, participants were randomly assigned to receive either five minutes of Christian intercessory prayer from a trained volunteer - incorporating laying-on-of-hands - or five minutes of soft music as a control. Participants were followed up at two and six weeks.

Key findings

• Pain: Prayer group participants reported significantly greater pain reductions immediately after the session and at the two-week follow-up compared to the music group. The difference was not statistically significant at six weeks.
• Anxiety: Prayer group participants showed significantly greater reductions in anxiety scores immediately after their treatment. This effect persisted at two and six weeks suggesting durable effects lasting at least a month and a half.
• Safety and acceptance: No participants reported adverse events. Ninety-seven percent of prayer recipients were neutral, agreeable, or strongly agreeable to having PIP available as part of future medical visits.
• Who benefited most: Black participants reported larger reductions in both pain and anxiety following prayer - a finding the authors consider particularly meaningful given documented inequities in pain treatment and the high rates of prayer use as complementary medicine among Black Americans.

Why it matters

Prayer is the most common form of complementary medicine in the United States, used by 43% of Americans with 62% of this group identifying as Christian. Despite this widespread use, rigorous clinical trials of in-person intercessory prayer have been scarce. This study is among the first well-powered randomized controlled trials of proximal intercessory prayer conducted in a standard primary care setting.

Proximal intercessory prayer was safe, effective, and well-received as complementary treatment for pain and anxiety. It may be a low-cost, non-pharmacologic, effective adjunct to standard care with particular relevance for underserved populations."

Katherine Jacobson, MD, Lead Author, Assistant Professor of Family and Community Medicine, University of Maryland School of Medicine

"The prayer intervention was effective regardless of the patient's faith or no faith," said co-author Joshua W. Brown, PhD, Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Indiana University and Director and Co-founder of the Global Medical Research Institute. "Our findings add to research showing how prayer changes brain function in ways that promotes health."

Dr. Brown is the author of the newly released book Proving a Miracle (Harper, 2026). He was diagnosed with a brain tumor over 20 years ago while just starting his career as a neuroscientist. That sparked his interest in whether prayer has medical benefits and led to numerous medical studies of healing prayer around the world, as he describes in his new book.

Context and limitations

The study population was predominantly Black, female, and low-income - reflective of the clinic's patient base but limiting broader generalizability. Because blinding participants or prayer practitioners is not possible without undermining the ecological validity of the intervention, placebo effects and non-specific factors such as human presence and touch cannot be fully ruled out. The authors note that future studies should include a control condition with interpersonal contact and touch but without prayer, to better isolate PIP's specific effects.

About the study

The trial was registered on ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT07565142) and approved by the University of Maryland Baltimore Institutional Review Board. Funding was provided by a Global Medical Research Institute MESH Grant. The study was conducted by researchers from the University of Maryland School of Medicine, Indiana University, and the Global Medical Research Institute.