Role of religious coping and personal meaning in the mental health of Iranian disabled war veterans

Abstract

A substantial body of mainly US research has suggested the mental health benefits of religiosity and spirituality and that this relationship is mediated by extrinsic factors such as health behaviours, social support and sense of personal meaning or coherence. However, as Pargament argues, it is also possible that religion has unique benefits through providing contact with the sacred. Such benefits can be expected to be more evident in a religious society such as Iran. In order to assess religious coping in Iran, a religious coping scale modelled on Pargament’s scale was developed specifically for Iranian Muslims and tested in a sample of university students (N = 185). Similarly, the validity and reliability of Reker’s Personal Meaning scale was tested on a sample of university students (N = 136) and school teachers (N = 162). These studies also demonstrated the associations with well-being variables of both religious coping and personal meaning. To investigate the relative efficacy of religious coping and personal meaning in dealing with physical disability and traumatic experiences, a sample of disabled war veterans of the Iran-Iraq conflict was studied (N = 78). Many Iranian veterans perceived the war as a sacred defence. It was expected that such sanctification would have helped protect them from mental health problems and distress. Results showed that religious coping had a significant contribution to mental health of veterans beyond and above other predictor variables such as physical function, social support and personal meaning. These predictor variables did not explain the relationship between religious coping and mental health. This research also indicated that participants used positive religious coping strategies more frequently than negative religious coping strategies in coping with their physical disability problems and traumatic experiences. The limitations of this study are discussed and suggestions made for the sanctification hypothesis in other samples.

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