The current study aimed to assess the association between religious involvement, psychological distress and various aspects of integration in a population of Turkish/Kurdish migrants in primary care.
We compared the group of Turkish/Kurdish migrants (n = 179, age m = 39.4 years, 65.0 % female) with German dermatological patients (n = 184, age m = 43.1 years, 60.9 % female) with regard to their religiosity.
On average the migrants lived in Germany for 24.98 years (SD = 8.90). Compared to the German patients, they showed higher religious involvement and participation. The migrants were highly significant more religious (p < 0.001) than the German patients. Contrary to expectation, no significant correlations between measures of religiosity and psychological distress were found for the Turkish migrant group. Further, inverse relationships between measures of religiosity and measures of integration resulted. Migrants who were more acculturated showed less religiosity.
The religious affiliation of the examined group was islamic. It remains open if the inverse association between religiosity and integration would be the same also for other religions.