(Non)Religious Coping with a Natural Disaster in a Rural U.S. Community

Abstract

Much research related to individual coping following human-made and natural disasters suggests religious and spiritual coping is associated with positive outcomes (Aten et al., 2019). The presentation of this positive relationship may erroneously infer that nonreligious individuals' outcomes are negatively impacted by the absence of religious coping. Rather, studies of psychological well-being suggest a curvilinear relationship between (non)religiosity and well-being, such that low, as compared to high, levels of identification with a religious or nonreligious identity are associated with lower well-being (Galen & Kloet, 2011). Studies of the relationship between religiosity and mental health, including in the context of disaster, often exclude participation of nonreligious individuals through omission (Hwang et al., 2011) or utilize measures of religiousness that fail to capture nonreligious people (e.g., atheists, agnostics, religious nones; Cragun et al., 2015). Thus, studies of coping with natural disasters that are inclusive of a wide range of (non)religious orientations and examine differences, if any, among people of varying levels of reli-giousness and spirituality, are needed, a problem the current investigation sought to address. Of note, the terms (non)religious and (non)spiritual are used throughout the manuscript to refer to the full spectrum of systems of belief and nonbelief, ranging from atheism to high religiosity, whereas nonreligious/nonspiritual are used to refer to people without a religious and/or spiritual orientation. Natural Disasters and Trauma Natural disasters are sudden, potentially traumatic, often weather-related events (e.g. tornados, hurricanes) that generally occur locally but require national or international assistance due to the far-reaching impact of the resulting destruction (Kilmer et al., 2019). Much scholarship has focused on the psychological impact of natural disasters and the established link between exposure to disasters and the development of mental health problems, especially post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD; Goldmann & Galea, 2014). However, a wide range in the prevalence of PTSD rates (i.e., 3% to 60%) after a natural disaster suggests that factors other than mere exposure to the traumatic aspects of a disaster determine whether mental health problems develop (Neria et al., 2008). Many such factors have been identified, including peri-traumatic distress, disruption distress, social support, and coping strategies (Baral & Bhagawati, 2019; McGuire et al., 2018).

Coping with COVID-19: An Examination of the Role of (Non)Religiousness/(Non)Spirituality

“…The relationship between pandemic-related trauma and psychological distress in the current examination is congruent with previous collective trauma research (Baral et al 2019;Goldmann et al 2014), including a similar examination of coping and (non)religiousness following a natural disaster (Abbott et al 2021) and emerging data related to COVID-19 (Schecter et al 2020). Therefore, it appears depressive, anxious and stress symptoms are possible in response to the COVID-19 pandemic among people in the US across the (non)religious/(non)spiritual spectrum.…”

“…Higher scores indicated participants perceived they were experiencing higher levels of personal trauma due to COVID-19. This measure is consistent with the variable used when testing a similar model in our own previously published research (Abbott et al 2021).…”

“…The authors (Abbott et al 2021) examined the mediating role of coping strategies in the relationship between trauma intensity and posttraumatic symptoms and growth, as moderated by (non)religiousness/(non)spirituality following a natural disaster in a small, rural city in the Southeastern U.S. Consistent with previous research, lower levels of depressive symptoms and higher posttraumatic growth were associated with higher institutional religiousness and individual spirituality.…”

“…Further, although previous research suggested nonreligious/nonspiritual people were more likely to use problem-focused coping in response to collective trauma in the form of a natural disaster (Abbott et al 2021), perhaps due to their tendency to engage in analytical thinking to evaluate circumstances (Franks et al 2017;Baker et al 2012), most people are likely able to draw upon knowledge of other natural disasters by which they or others have been impacted in determining a personal response. The novel nature of the COVID-19 pandemic may have made it difficult for nonreligious people to engage in otherwise preferred and problem-focused methods of coping like planning, taking action to improve the situation and soliciting advice from others.…”

“…Consistent with previous research, lower levels of depressive symptoms and higher posttraumatic growth were associated with higher institutional religiousness and individual spirituality. However, upon probing an interaction between trauma and non-religion/non-spirituality, nonreligious and nonspiritual participants reported lower depressive symptoms and more posttraumatic growth when employing adaptive coping strategies, specifically problem-focused coping (e.g., active coping, instrumental support and planning; Abbott et al 2021). This preliminary study suggests differences, if any, in mental health across the (non)religious/(non)spiritual spectrum may be associated with coping mechanisms utilized and, perhaps, the congruence of coping style with (non)belief system.…”