Assessment of religious coping in patients with COPD

Abstract

Objective: To compare religious coping (RC) in patients with COPD and healthy individuals, as well as to determine whether RC is associated with demographic characteristics, quality of life, depression, and disease severity in the patients with COPD. Methods: This was a cross-sectional study conducted between 2014 and 2016, involving outpatients with moderate to severe COPD seen at one of two hospitals in Fortaleza, Brazil, as well as gender- and age-matched healthy controls. The Brief RCOPE scale assessed RC in all of the participants. We also evaluated the COPD group patients regarding symptoms, quality of life, and depression, as well as submitting them to spirometry and a six-minute walk test. Results: A total of 100 patients were evaluated. The mean age was 67.3 ± 6.8 years, and 54% were men. In the COPD group, the mean positive RC score was significantly higher than was the mean negative RC score (27.17 ± 1.60 vs. 8.21 ± 2.12; p = 0.001). The mean positive RC score was significantly higher in women than in men (27.5 ± 1.1 vs. 26.8 ± 2.8; p = 0.02). Negative RC scores were significantly higher in the COPD group than in the control group (p = 0.01). Negative RC showed an inverse association with six-minute walk distance (6MWD; r = −0.3; p < 0.05) and a direct association with depressive symptoms (r = 0.2; p < 0.03). Positive RC correlated with none of the variables studied. Multiple regression analysis showed that negative RC was associated with 6MWD (coefficient = −0.009; 95% CI: −0.01 to −0.003). 6MWD explained the variance in negative RC in a linear fashion. Conclusions: Patients with COPD employ negative RC more often than do healthy individuals. Exercise capacity and depressive symptoms are associated with negative RC.

Spirituality and religiosity are associated with physical and psychological status in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

“…However, other measures of physical function, related to ADL, have demonstrated an association with S/R measures in COPD. Exercise capacity measured by the six‐minute walk test in people with moderate to severe COPD was associated with higher negative S/R Coping (Nascimento et al, 2019). Increased positive S/R Coping, increased organisational religious activities and lower negative S/R Coping has also been observed following pulmonary rehabilitation in people with COPD (Silva et al, 2018).…”

“…However, aspects of religion, spirituality and S/R Coping have been afforded limited exploration in COPD (Gergianaki et al, 2019). Patients with COPD show spiritual engagement similar to those with inoperable lung cancer (Hasegawa et al, 2017) and have negative S/R Coping thinking more often than healthy peers (Nascimento et al, 2019) Gaining an understanding of the association between religion, spirituality and S/R Coping components and the physical and psychological impact of COPD may assist health professionals in the management of the disease. Therefore, the two objectives of this study were (1) to evaluate the association between S/R and S/R Coping with physical and psychological status in patients with stable COPD and (2) to explore the influence of S/R on the physical and psychological features.…”

Religiosity and Religious Coping in Patients with COPD: A Cross-Sectional Comparison Between Brazil and the Netherlands and Associations with Physical and Psychological Health

“…Only a significant, weak, and positive correlation between symptoms of anxiety and NRC was observed. In another study with Brazilian patients with COPD, a significant and positive correlation was observed between NRC and symptoms of depression (Nascimento et al, 2020). As previous findings have shown that depressive patients with COPD make fewer attempts to improve their health (Horita et al, 2013;Pedersen et al, 2013), we hypothesise that depressive symptoms might have led to negative thoughts regarding the relationship of the participants with God, with an understanding of the disease as a form of God's punishment.…”

“…However, in these studies, patients were recruited from a single centre and only generic questionnaires were used to assess the quality of life. More recently, a negative RC was found to be inversely correlated with functional exercise capacity and directly correlated with depressive symptoms in patients with COPD (Nascimento et al, 2020).…”

Spirituality in people with advanced chronic obstructive pulmonary disease – challenge for more effective interventions, support, and healthcare education: Mini-review

“…Some factors such as sex or nationality and culture are important. Women were shown to present a higher positive RC than men ( 27 ). Dutch patients who reported at least a little faith in God or a spiritual power employ positive RC more often than non-believers ( 19 ).…”