People with religious faith tend to cope better with cancer on average, a new study published in the US journalCancer has found.

According to the Daily Telegraph, the research, a meta-analysis of past studies that examined more than 44,000 patients, concluded that cancer sufferers who believed in a benevolent God had better physical health, greater ability to carry on doing everyday tasks and fewer physical symptoms of cancer and its treatment.

The “modest but reliable” correlation between belief and health also extended to self-perception, with believers in a God who loves them and answers their prayers reporting better physical, mental and social health than people who believed in a more angry deity, or no God at all.

The type of God a patient believed in was significant in the results: Those who believed their illness was punishment from an angry or distant God or who had doubts over their faith fared worse on all the health measures, while those who were able to “integrate” their cancer diagnosis with their belief system fared better.

Dr Heather Jim of the Moffitt Cancer Center told the Telegraph: “In addition, some patients struggle with the religious or spiritual significance of their cancer, which is normal.

“How they resolve their struggle may impact their health, but more research is needed to better understand and support these patients.”

The analysis of mental health outcomes also discovered that the emotional aspects of religion and spirituality were more strongly associated with positive mental health than behavioural aspects of religion and spirituality, such as levels of church attendance.

Dr John Salsman at Wake Forest School of Medicine added: “Spiritual well-being was, unsurprisingly, associated with less anxiety, depression, or distress.

“Also, greater levels of spiritual distress and a sense of disconnectedness with God or a religious community was associated with greater psychological distress or poorer emotional well-being.”

Read the abstract of the study here.