Purpose: What is the effect of "prayer" on mental health and peace? Its place was empty in the existing research, so this research was conducted with the aim of investigating and explaining the processes of prayer's effect on mental peace.
Materials and methods: This study was applied in terms of purpose and qualitative in terms of execution method. The research community consisted of all students, professors and researchers in the field of religious psychology living in Tehran, and according to the principle of theoretical saturation, 20 people were selected by purposive sampling. The research tool was a semi-structured interview, and the validity and reliability were confirmed using the Lincoln & Guba evaluation method. Colaizzi's qualitative analysis method was used for data analysis.
Findings: Among the 53 indicators, 7 main components (connection to God's great power, creating hope, creating spiritual pleasure, increasing knowledge about life and existence, leading to desirable behaviors, increasing self-esteem, finding identity) and 3 main dimensions ( transformation in personal states, transformation in beliefs and lifestyle, transformation in self-confidence) can be identified.
Conclusion: This research identified the most important explanations of the process of the effect of prayer on mental peace and its proposal, firstly; Placement of prayer in the health programs of patients and secondly; The explanation of the effect of prayer on mental peace is in the content of training courses, educational workshops and textbooks in the fields of psychology, medicine and counseling.