Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer (STEP) in Cardiac Bypass Patients

The Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer in Cardiac Bypass Patients, led by Herbert Benson and colleagues and published in the American Heart Journal in 2006, is a large, randomized, peer reviewed clinical trial testing whether prayer by strangers for cardiac surgery patients affected their recovery, using a design where some patients were prayed for without knowing it, some were not prayed for, and a third group was prayed for and told so with certainty. Its strength is a rigorous randomized design, one of the largest and most carefully controlled clinical tests of intercessory prayer's medical effect. Its limit is that the trial found no benefit from being prayed for and, unexpectedly, a higher complication rate among patients who knew with certainty they were being prayed for, a result later discussion has debated the interpretation of, so a claim drawing on it should note the finding was a null result on prayer's medical effect, not evidence against prayer's meaning more broadly.