RELIGIOUS COPING AND PSYCHOLOGICAL WELL-BEING AMONG COVID-19 BEREAVED FAMILIES

Abstract

COVID-19 pandemic led to an unparalleled worldwide loss of life with many families grieving under highly unusual social and health strains. Grief in this crisis took on special dimensions due to hospitals forbidding visitors, loss of mourning rites and increased uncertainty. Religious coping has been demonstrated with this own research and those of others, to be a significant factor in reducing the impact of psychological distress as well as increasing resilience during times of crise). In families bereaved by COVID-19, religious coping strategies and psychological well-being were investigated. Through a mixed methods design, quantitative data were collected from 2,000 survey respondents purposively selected to represent different religious and cultural groups, augmented with 40 in-depth interviews. Regression-based analyses (i.e., multiple regression and structural equation modeling) ascertained coping outcomes, whereas qualitative thematic coding documented spiritual narratives more richly. Findings were consistent with the overall model that positive religious coping (seeking spiritual support, benevolent religious reappraisals) related to greater well-being and lower complicated grief responses versus negative religious coping (spiritual discontent, punitive God reappraisals), which were associated with greater distress (Pargament et al., 2011). These results highlight the need to incorporate faith-sensitive mental health interventions in pandemic recovery responses. The study contributes to the literature by grounding religious coping in the exceptional circumstances of global health threats and also includes useful implications for social science, psychology, and public health.

Keywords: religious coping, bereavement, psychological well-being, COVID-19, grief, resilience, spirituality