No abstract

Qualitative research has demonstrated that religious meaning-making coping, defined as attributions of a stressful life event that involve the sacred, is particularly relevant to persons with serious mental illness. However, recent research advances in the study of religious coping have yet to be employed in clinical samples. This longitudinal study examines religious meaning-making coping in a sample of 48 young adults diagnosed with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder over a one-year period. Young adults with mental illness generally reported using religious meaning-making coping in levels comparable to nonpsychiatric samples. Reports of benevolent religious reappraisals were associated with perceptions of positive mental health, whereas punishing God reappraisals and reappraisals of God's power were associated with self-reported distress and personal loss. Religious coping variables accounted for variation in adults' reports of psychiatric symptoms and personal loss one year later over and above demographic and global religious variables. Implications of findings for clinical practice are discussed.

Researchers have developed scales to measure religious coping among Christians, Jews, Muslims, and Hindus. However, there is no quantitative measure of religious coping for Buddhists. The present study describes the development and initial validation of a scale of Buddhist coping (BCOPE). Eight hundred sixty participants in the United States completed the BCOPE along with demographic information and scales of adjustment to stress. Construct validity of the BCOPE is demonstrated through exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, which reveals 14 types of Buddhist coping. BCOPE subscales exhibited criterion validity through significant correlations with outcome measures. The BCOPE has incremental validity, predicting adjustment over and above demographic and global religious measures. The research and practical implications of the BCOPE are discussed.

Self-directing religious coping has been correlated with both positive and negative outcome variables in previous research. The purpose of this study was to explore the potential meaning behind these mixed findings by clarifying the nature of the self-directing religious coping construct. A new set of subscales was constructed that operationalized different aspects of the construct. This scale, the original Religious Problem Solving Scale, and mental-health measures were given to 262 undergraduate students at a moderate-sized midwestern university. Two factors were identified with the revised self-directing measure: a deistic and supportive but nonintervening God factor and an abandoning God factor. The Abandoning God Subscale was more highly correlated with the original SelfDirecting Scale than was the deistic God measure. The Deistic and Supportive God Subscale was correlated with both positive and negative mental-health outcomes, whereas the abandoning God measure consistently related to poorer outcomes.

Psychometric properties of a brief self-report measure of personal loss for adults coping with psychiatric disability are examined. The Personal Loss from Mental Illness Scale (PLMI) is a 20-item measure that assesses overall perceptions and four interrelated aspects of personal loss from mental illness. Using a sample of 158 adults with serious mental illness, the PLMI was found to have a meaningful factor structure, good internal consistency and high test-retest reliability. Construct validity is evidenced by positive correlations between personal loss scores, number of psychiatric hospitalizations, self-reports of loneliness, psychological symptoms, and problems with alcohol. PLMI scores were unrelated to scores on a personal growth measure and negatively correlated with scores on a positive well-being scale. Implications of the PLMI for research on coping, adaptation and recovery from serious mental illness are discussed.