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This study examined how religion is involved in achieving a sense of personal control in a situation that evokes feelings of distress and vulnerability. One hundred and fifty family members, waiting in the hospital while their relative underwent coronary artery bypass surgery, completed a survey about their methods of coping, event-specific outcomes, and adjustment (depression and anxiety). As predicted, religious methods of coping designed to achieve control predicted outcomes and adjustment beyond the effects of non-religious coping measures and traditional general measures of religiousness. A collaborative approach to religious coping, in which the individual shares the responsibility for coping with God, was particularly associated with better outcomes. However, the religious coping measures were also associated with higher self-reported levels of depression and anxiety. Exploratory path analyses suggested that anxiety and depression may be stressors in themselves, eliciting religious coping responses which, in turn, lead to specific outcomes. These findings underscore the practical and empirical value of a closer, more detailed analysis of the roles of religion in coping with uncontrollable life stressors.

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Compares the self-reports of family members waiting during the cardiac artery grafting surgery of a loved one and explores whether they make distinctions between the contributions of nonreligious and religious support. Results from regression analyses suggests that the use of religious sources of support was associated with both more positive religious and nonreligious psychosocial adjustment scores after the influences of nonreligious support were statistically removed. Notes that among the 13 religious support activities identified, family members reported using prayer most frequently. Concludes that using religious support sources to cope with this surgically related stress is associated with distinct subjective benefits beyond those contributed by nonreligious sources.