Religion and Pandemic: Shifts of Interpretation, Popular Lore, and Practices. An Introduction

Agadjanian, Alexander; Siekierski, Konrad

doi:10.46586/er.12.2021.9907

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

References 6 publications

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“…Within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, it has been reported that Google searches using the word "prayer" reached a record high in March 2020, the timing of which corresponds with the onset of the pandemic [50,51]. Consistent with the notion that people often rely on their religious beliefs to cope with traumatic events, interest in religion surged throughout the course of the pandemic [50,52]. However, many pandemic-related restriction measures, such as stay-at-home orders and indoor capacity limits, might have been a source of distress for religious individuals in particular [26,51,53].…”

Section: Religion Coping and Mental Healthmentioning

confidence: 93%

Medicine for the soul: (Non)religious identity, coping, and mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic

Peneycad,

Ysseldyk,

Tippins

et al. 2024

PLoS ONE

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Although the threat and uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic has become a significant source of distress, using religion to cope may be associated with more positive health. Given the severity and chronicity of the pandemic, religious individuals may also have relied on a variety of non-religious coping methods. Much of the existing COVID-19 research overlooks the role of religious group membership and beliefs in relation to coping responses and associated mental health, with an additional lack of such research within the Canadian context. Thus, this cross-sectional study investigated relations among religiosity, stressor appraisals, (both religious and non-religious) coping strategies, mental and physical health in a religiously-diverse Canadian community sample (N = 280) during the pandemic’s 2nd wave from March to June 2021. Numerous differences were apparent in appraisal-coping methods and health across five (non)religious groups (i.e., Atheists, Agnostics, “Spiritual but not religious”, Christians, and those considered to be religious “Minorities” in Canada). Religiosity was also associated with better mental health, appraisals of the pandemic as a challenge from which one might learn or grow, and a greater reliance on problem-focused, emotional-engagement, and religious coping. Moreover, both problem-focused and emotional-engagement coping mediated the relations between religiosity and health. Taken together, this research has implications for individual-level coping as well as informing culturally-sensitive public health messages promoting targeted self-care recommendations with integrated religious or spiritual elements during times of threat and uncertainty, such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

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