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Objectives: Together with the COVID-19 pandemic, conspiracy theories have begun to spread. Evidence is lacking for religious conspiracy theories (RCT) related to COVID-19 in a non-religious environment. This study aimed to assess links between religiosity and spirituality (R/S) and RCT about COVID-19, and to examine their associations with mental health.Methods: A sample of Czech adults (n = 1,273, mean age = 47.5, SD = 16.4; 51.5% male) participated in the survey. We measured R/S, RCT, negative religious coping (NRC), feelings impairment and mental health symptoms.Results: We found R/S were significantly associated with RCT with β 0.71 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.59–0.82) for the strongest association. Moreover, RCT and NRC were strongly associated with paranoia, anxiety and depression. The most frequent association was found for NRC and paranoid ideation, with β of 0.35 (95% CI 0.26–0.44).Conclusion: Our findings showed associations between religiosity/spirituality and beliefs in religious conspiracy theories about COVID-19. Moreover, these RCT and negative religious coping were linked to higher possibility of mental health problems. Understanding these associations may help prevent this negative impact and contribute to the effectiveness of psychotherapeutic help.

Objectives: We investigated the associations between religiosity/spirituality and respondents’ changes in their relationships, feelings, thinking, and behaviour during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Czech Republic.Methods: A sample of Czech adults (n = 1,434; 48.3 ± 16.4 years; 49.65% women) participated in the online survey. We measured spirituality, religiosity, self-reported changes in relationships, disrupted feelings, and changes in behaviour during the pandemic.Results: Spiritual respondents were more likely to report increased physical activity, sex, reading and self-education, with odds ratios (ORs) ranging from 1.26 (95% confidence interval 1.09–1.46) to 1.56 (1.31–1.86). The combination of spirituality and religiosity led to an increase in the range of ORs to 1.57–2.69. Spiritual and religious participants were less likely to feel the decrease of hope by 70%, while mere spirituality significantly reduced the decrease of hope by only 30%. Religiosity itself led to a lower risk of reporting a disrupted day structure with an OR = 0.74 (0.58–0.95).Conclusion: Religiosity and spirituality separately help people during a pandemic in some areas. Especially their combination has a more positive impact on relationships, feelings, and behaviour.