An Gratitude Programme Based on Islamic Teaching for the Well-Being of Emerging Adults

Overview

Gratitude practices have been shown to improve well-being but nearly all the programs tested so far were designed without reference to Islamic understanding. This study tests a month-long gratitude program built around the Islamic concept of shukr. Participants complete a short daily journal entry, watch a short video before each day, and attend 5 online group sessions across 4 weeks. The content covers what Shukr (Islamic gratitude) means, how it is expressed towards Allah and towards other people, and how it works during difficult times. Participants are Muslim emerging adults aged 18 to 29 from Pakistan. They are randomly assigned either to the experimental or control group. Well-being and gratitude are measured before the program, at the end of the program, and at a follow-up after three months.

The intervention was developed following the Medical Research Council framework for developing and evaluating complex interventions (Skywington et al, 2021). Development drew on a systematic literature review and 2 qualitative studies and interviews. First, with Islamic scholars, which produced a model of shukr covering its theocentric foundation, its expression through heart, tongue, and limbs, its unconditional character, the virtue surrounding it, the humility it produces, and its social outworking. Second, the interviews with practitioners experienced in delivering psychological interventions, which produced design and safeguarding requirements. Existing gratitude interventions show modest effects, and three limitations recur: gratitude directed at other people can produce a sense of indebtedness rather than appreciation; gratitude exercises perform poorly for people who are currently distressed because the exercise depends on identifying benefits; and interventions transported without cultural adaptation lose effect, particularly when adaptation stays at the surface rather than the emerging population's own framework for making sense of events. The intervention addresses each of these: gratitude is directed towards Allah, who requires no repayment in kind; shukr is paired with Sabr (patience), which makes gratitude practicable during hardship rather than only after benefit. The daily practice is attached to an existing routine to support habit formation, and content is drawn from Quranic text and prophetic narration rather than from a single scholarly tradition. The intervention structure: 26 journal entries across 4 weeks, which are accompanied by prerecorded videos (presenting the same teaching and prompt as the workbook) and five facilitated group live sessions delivered online.The first session proceeds before day 1 of journal entries; the remaining sessions fall roughly at the end of each week. Week 3 addresses gratitude during hardship and includes content on adversity, unanswered prayers, and difficult relationships. Participants are informed which days are there before a week begins and may skip any day without explanation. Safeguards include explicit exclusion of abusive relationships from the content on difficult people, wording that does not require disclosure of private matters, an anonymous well-being check administered roughly mid-intervention, and a defined support and escalation procedures.