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Objectives Religiosity may serve as a personal source of support when people face a life-threatening illness, but it can also elicit stress. The main aim of this study is to show how various religious dimensions interplay in predicting death anxiety in patients diagnosed as having cancer. Material and Methods In the cross‐sectional, descriptive‐analytical research, 141 Polish patients who were hospitalized due to cancer were selected using sequential convenience sampling. Data were collected using the Centrality of Religiosity Scale, Religious Comfort and Strain Scale , and the Death Anxiety and Dying Distress Scale . Results The authors’ results show that the effect of the centrality of religiosity on death anxiety is non-linear. We can also confirm the mediating role of religious comfort and struggles in the relationship between the centrality of religiosity and death anxiety. Conclusions Thus, religious struggles appear to weaken the effect of religion on death anxiety, whereas religious comfort (contrary to expectation) does not enhance it. Int J Occup Med Environ Health. 2023;36(4):450–64

Individuals with a Religious or Spiritual Problem (RSP), as defined in the DSM-5, experience distress associated with faith-related moral dilemmas, existential meaning, and transpersonal attitudes toward other people. It is unclear whether a RSP reflects a generally heightened stress reactivity or whether the stress response is confined to religious and spiritual contexts. To elucidate this issue, we measured behavioral and physiological responses during social-evaluative stress (public speaking—Trier Social Stress Test) and in religious/spiritual contexts (Bible reading and listening to sacred music) in 35 individuals with RSP and 35 matched participants. We found no stress reduction in the religious/spiritual context in RSP, as indicated by increased heart rate, saliva cortisol, and relatively higher left than right frontal activity. Religious stimuli evoked physiological stress responses in RSP. Contrary to the physiological parameters, participants with RSP reported less anxiety in the religious/spiritual context. Religious individuals with and without RSP showed similar stress responses during public speaking. Religious individuals without RSP displayed reduced stress responses in the religious/spiritual context. These results indicate that specific physiological distress in religious/spiritual contexts should be considered in the psychological care of RSP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Religiosity may serve as a personal source of support when people face a life-threatening illness, but it can also elicit stress. The main aim of this study is to show how various religious dimensions interplay in predicting death anxiety in patients diagnosed as having cancer. Material and Methods: In the cross-sectional, descriptive-analytical research, 141 Polish patients who were hospitalized due to cancer were selected using sequential convenience sampling. Data were collected using the Centrality of Religiosity Scale, Religious Comfort and Strain Scale, and the Death Anxiety and Dying Distress Scale. Results: The authors' results show that the effect of the centrality of religiosity on death anxiety is non-linear. The authors can also confirm the mediating role of religious comfort and struggles in the relationship between the centrality of religiosity and death anxiety. Conclusions: Thus, religious struggles appear to weaken the effect of religion on death anxiety, whereas religious comfort (contrary to expectation) does not enhance it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The current study examined the relationships between religious resources (i.e., certainty of belief in God and attendance at religious services), religious struggle (e.g., belief that cancer is evidence of God's punishment or abandonment), and physical and mental health-related quality of life (HRQoL), including fear of cancer recurrence (FCR), in a large, geographically and clinically diverse sample of long-term survivors of cancer. Methods: Participants were 2021 9-year survivors of cancer from the American Cancer Society's Study of Cancer Survivors – I. Religious resources included belief in God and attendance at religious services. Items from the Brief RCOPE and the PROMIS Psychosocial Impact of Illness were combined to assess religious struggle. Survivors also completed the Fear of Cancer Recurrence Inventory, SF-12, and Meaning and Peace subscales of the FACIT-Sp. Regression models were used to predict HRQoL and FCR from religious resources and struggle. Results: In multivariable models, certain belief in God predicted greater mental HRQoL (B = 1.99, p <.01), and attendance at religious services was associated with greater FCR (B =.80, p <.05) as well as better mental (B =.34, p <.01) and physical (B =.29, p <.05) HRQoL. In addition, religious struggle predicted greater FCR (B = 1.32, p <.001) and poorer mental (B = −.59, p <.001) and physical (B = −.29, p <.001) HRQoL. Many of these relationships were mediated through Meaning. Conclusions: With the exception of FCR, religious resources predicted better HRQoL outcomes in these long-term survivors of cancer. Conversely, religious struggle consistently predicted poorer HRQoL, including greater FCR. Implications for Cancer Survivors: Given the documented importance of its role in coping with the cancer experience, religion/spirituality should be a consideration in every survivorship care plan. Multidisciplinary assessment and support of religious resources and identification of and referral for religious struggle are needed to ensure the well-being of most long-term survivors of cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Derbent entered the historical literature as one of the largest Islamic centers in the Caucasus, where Muslim ideology was actively spread by the Arabs from the mid-seventh century. However, early medieval Albanian and Armenian sources show that the first world religion, perceived by the population of Derbent was Christianity. St. Elisha began to preach it in the city Choga (Derbent) in the 60s of the irst century, ordained by Jacob, the first Patriarch of Jerusalem, brother of Jesus Christ. The Church calls this initial phase of Christianisation in Caucasian Albania, including Derbent, the apostolic one. The second stage followed in IV - irst half of V century and was initiated by the Holy Grigoris, the first head of the Albanian Church, who died at the hands of the Maskuts, who lived in the area of Derbent passage. The third stage succeeded in the mid-ifth to mid-sixth century, when Derbent became the main bulwark against the Albanian king Vache II in the attempts of Sassanian Iran to impose zoroastrianism on the people of the Caucasus. Since the 60s of the V century until the middle of the VI century Derbent was the residence of the head of the Albanian Church (Catholicos).

Background: As thousands of patients, often with complex care needs, were hospitalized due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, demand for palliative care was magnified. Part of hospitals' palliative care teams, palliative chaplains delivered emotional support while specializing in the religious, spiritual, and the existential aspects of care. With COVID-19 containment measures increasing isolation and disrupting supportive family connections, the emotional and spiritual well-being of the patients and families were unclear. Objectives: Through the unique perspectives and insights of inpatient palliative care chaplains, we sought to qualitatively capture their perceptions and the patient–family experience as the pandemic emerged. Setting/Subjects: This investigation was based in the United States. Design: Individual semistructured telephone interviews (n = 10) were conducted between April 22 and May 6, 2020. Through thematic analysis, analyses progressed through initial coding sessions, refining a codebook, identifying representative quotes, and recognizing themes. Results: Five themes were identified and described through the coding process and recognizing representative quotes: (1) visitor restrictions—patients, (2) visitor restrictions—families, (3) religious struggle, (4) spiritual distress, and (5) decision making. Conclusions: Inpatient palliative care chaplains were active interprofessional partners caring for patients and families as the uncertainty of the pandemic unfolded. The crises of this pandemic magnified chaplain specialization as they attended to emotional, spiritual, and religious suffering and as well as complex decision making with patients and their family members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This case study focuses on the treatment of a 44-year-old Dutch man presenting with an anxious God representation and religious struggles according to DSM-5 criteria. Having received prior treatment for a panic disorder and alcohol use disorder, the patient was given a 60-day treatment in which the Jesus Prayer intervention was used to address his religious and spiritual problems. To our knowledge, this is the first case study involving the Jesus Prayer in the treatment of a patient. The intervention had positive effects on the patient's religious and spiritual problems concerning an anxious God representation, religious struggles, stress levels and surrender to God. The intervention may also play a supporting role in decreasing symptoms of depression and anxiety and in promoting global mental health, as reliable change index analyses revealed symptom reduction between baseline levels and at post-assessment levels for all measured symptoms, with a semi-gradual decrease over the course of treatment. These improvements were continued in a 3-month follow-up assessment, suggesting promise for the Jesus Prayer as an effective treatment method for religious and spiritual problems. Recommendations regarding the importance of assessing the religious life of patients and implementing spiritual interventions are discussed, as well as the relevance of the therapist's own assumptions when treating a religious or spiritual problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the last two decades, several studies have been carried out to examine the main predictors of life satisfaction and anxiety. This paper investigates the connection between spirituality, religiosity, religious coping, forgiveness, anxiety, and satisfaction with life in the case of a Turkish Muslim sample. In total 560 respondents were selected from different faculties of Bolu Abant İzzet Baysal University. 53.4% (N= 299) of the sample were females and 46.6% (N= 261) of them were males. Participants’ age changed to between 18 and 38 years. 28.4% (N=159) of students were from faculty of education, 25.9% (N=145) of students were from faculty of architecture and engineering, 23.8% (N=133) of students were from faculty of theology, and 22% (N=123) of students were from faculty of administrative sciences and economics. In the present researchers utilised the “Forgiveness Scale”, “Positive Religious Coping Scale”, “Religious Struggles”, “Scale for Satisfaction with Life” and “Generalised Anxiety Scale” to collect data. According to multiple regression findings, religiosity and forgiveness were significant predictors for life satisfaction. Moreover, forgiveness and religious coping (religious struggles and positive religious coping) were significant predictors of generalized anxiety.

Objectives. Religiosity and spirituality (R/S) are associated with many dimensions of human life and could contribute to one's self-esteem; however, there is no certainty that this is also applicable to non-religious countries. Therefore, the aim of the study was to explore the association of different aspects of R/S with self-esteem in a secular environment. Participants and setting. An online sample of 464 Czech respondents aged 15 and over (mean age 30.7; SD=12.63; 27.2% men) participated in the survey. Self-esteem, religiosity, religious attendance, frequency of prayer, negative religious coping, image of God and spirituality were measured. Results. Regular prayer, spirituality (per standard deviation, SD), a low level of religious struggles (per SD) and a positive God image (per SD) were associated with higher selfesteem, with odds ratios ranging from 1.28 to 2.16 (p˂0.05 to p˂0.001). In contrast, compared to non-religious respondents, religious respondents had an approximately 60% lower chance of having a high level of self-esteem (p˂0.05). However, a combination of R and S showed that while religious/spiritual respondents did not differ significantly from non-religious respondents, religious/non-spiritual respondents had approximately 79% lower chance of having good selfesteem (p˂0.001). Study limitations. The main limitation of this study is that it did not reach a representative sample, which limits the generalizability of the findings to the whole population. This is also the first study using this kind of research approach, which, however, limits the interpretation of results. Moreover, it is a cross-sectional study, so any conclusions on causality cannot be made, and the questionnary used only self-report measures, which could be influenced by a social desirability bias. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The religious dimension of life represents an important source of human strength, meaning, and coping for many people. However, the religious life is not always "smooth and easy" and can be associated with weak personal adjustment, poorer psychological well-being, and lower satisfaction. Yet, besides the direct relationship between these variables, some researchers postulate the existence of an indirect association that has not been fully explained by various psychosocial mediators. The aim of the present study was to verify whether self-esteem could be a potential mediator between religious strain and life satisfaction. The sample consisted of 607 adult Christians (49.6% women) aged between 18 and 79. We used the Religious Comfort and Strain Scale, the Satisfaction with Life Scale, and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale. Consistent with our hypotheses, life satisfaction positively correlated with religious comfort and was negatively associated with fear/guilt, negative emotions toward God, and negative social interactions surrounding religion. The same pattern of results was shown in the case of self-esteem. Moreover, the outcomes obtained from bootstrap sampling (5000) with a 95% confidence interval indicated a significant role of self-esteem as a mediator in all of the relationships between: (1) religious comfort and life satisfaction; (2) fear/guilt and life satisfaction; (3) negative emotions toward God and life satisfaction; and (4) negative social interactions surrounding religion and life satisfaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors present a brief history of research on religious and spiritual struggles and of the development of the typology and measurement of such struggles by means of the Religious and Spiritual Struggles Scale (Exline et al. 2014). Following a terminological clarification of the terms "religiousness" and "spirituality," which are often used interchangeably, an overview of the current state of research in the field of religious and spiritual conflicts is given based on fundamental contributions, especially by one of the main pioneers in this field, the American psychologist Julie Juola Exline. Research so far has most extensively focused on American samples, but scholars have recently begun to explore various other cultural and social backgrounds as it cannot be assumed that results from one society can be readily transferred to others, such as more secular societies. The article concludes with a discussion of the findings and a description of future research needs, especially for the European context where a lack of data is still evident. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current research explores religious struggle, aiming to assess personality traits as predictors and testing the mediating effects of religious coping styles. Using existing cross-sectional data, we used structural equation modeling to analyze data of 277 Malay Muslim undergraduates. The six-factor personality model HEXACO explained 14.2 % and 6.6 % of the variances for positive and negative religious coping styles respectively, with the addition of the two styles in the same model further explaining 19.5 % of the variances in religious struggle. Findings suggest significant relationships between various personality traits and religious coping styles, predictive of the level of religious struggle experienced by them. Extraversion and agreeableness positively predicted the use of positive religious coping style. Additionally, the same two traits with honesty-humility inversely predicted the use of negative religious coping style. Toward religious struggle, honesty-humility had a negative relation, contrasting with openness to experience having a positive relationship. Between the two religious coping styles, only positive style was observed to negatively predict religious struggle. Four mediation effects were observed. Findings provide valuable insights into the complex dynamics of religious struggle. These insights could inform future research and the development of targeted interventions to mitigate religious struggle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Divine engagement applies to a positive relationship with God in which people feel that God is close to them and answers their prayers. Divine disengagement pertains to an unsteady connection and a sense of God’s absence. Although several questionnaires consider the concerns of the human experience of prayer, only one deals precisely with the subject of the human perception of divine engagement and disengagement in response to one’s prayer. The main goals of the present research were to: (1) determine the latent structure of the Brief Measure of Perceived Divine Engagement and Disengagement in Response to Prayer (PDED) in a sample set; (2) test whether the factor structure indicated by EFA matches the data and provides an equivalent goodness-of-fit index to Exline’s model; and (3) confirm that perceived divine engagement and disengagement are correlated with religious meaning, gratitude to God, and dimensions of religious centrality. The results show that the proposed two-factor structure of the eight-item version of the PDED is a suitable and reliable solution of the original PDED (Study 1). Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) revealed a good fit of the data to the model in both the second and third studies. Both dimensions of the PDED correlated significantly with all of the subscales of the RMS, GGQ–6, and CRS–15. The Polish version of the PDED demonstrated very good psychometric properties.

A number of studies have demonstrated links between spiritual struggles and health problems. As yet, however, only a few studies have investigated what makes religious struggle a source of mental problems or a source of well-being. We determined whether spiritual growth, spiritual decline, and meaning-making mediated the relationship between religious struggle and anxiety and satisfaction with life. Of the 180 respondents, 92 were women, and mean (SD) age was 24 (8.2) years. Each respondent completed the Religious and Spiritual Struggles Scale, the Meaning-Making Scale, the Spiritual Transformation Scale, the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, and the Satisfaction with Life Scale. Religious struggle correlated positively with anxiety and negatively with satisfaction with life. Spiritual growth mediated the relationship between moral and demonic struggle with satisfaction with life, and spiritual decline mediated the relationship between demonic, moral, and interpersonal struggle with anxiety. Finally, meaning-making mediated the relationship between religious doubt and satisfaction with life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ideas that religion capitalizes on the operation of the attachment system and that believers' perceived relationships with God can be characterized as symbolic attachment relationships have been well established in the psychology of religion. This study aims to explore the relationships between early caregiver experiences and religious and spiritual struggle and whether loving, distant, and cruel God images are mediators of these relationships. The Experiences in Close Relationship Scale, God Image Scale, and Religious and Spiritual Struggle Scale were applied to the research. Correlations of parent–child attachment with religious and spiritual struggle measures support a correspondence between working models of parents and God. The study has shown that a distant God is a mediator of the relationship between avoidant attachment to one's parents and divine, meaning making, and religious doubt struggle. A cruel God is a mediator in the relationship between avoidant attachment to one's parents and interpersonal struggle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although a variety of studies have found robust links between religious/spiritual (r/s) struggle and poorer well-being, only a few have examined the means by which r/s struggle affects mental well-being. The present paper aims to examine religious support and meaning making as mediators of the relationship between r/s struggle and well-being. The study included 226 adults, 108 women and 118 men, aged between 17 and 78 years. We applied the Religious and Spiritual Struggle Scale, Religious Support Scale, Meaning Making Scale, and Psychological Well-Being Scale. The results demonstrated that both religious support and meaning making were mediators in the relationship between r/s struggles and well-being. During moral or demonic struggles, many people reportedly feel supported by their religion, make meaning based on these positive religious experiences, and in turn experience greater well-being. Conversely, during divine, ultimate meaning, and interpersonal struggles people may feel like God does not support them, which may lead to difficulties reframing their religious experience, and adversely influence well-being. The findings from this study underscore the multifaceted character of r/s struggle: during different types of r/s struggle people may feel that religion is a source of support for them or, by contrast, they may feel deprived of religious support, which can lead to an increase or decrease of well-being, respectively.