The invisible battle: A descriptive study of religious/spiritual struggles in Veterans

ABSTRACT

The current study systematically explored and described religious/spiritual (r/s) struggles – distress, tension, and conflict about certain aspects of r/s belief, practice, or experience – in a Veteran sample. Participants were 178 United States Veterans (148 men, 30 women) receiving care at a VA hospital and affiliated outpatient clinics who reported a current r/s struggle. Veterans completed a psychiatric interview and self-report measures of demographics, military experience, and levels of religiousness. They completed self-report scales assessing levels of r/s struggle across different domains (i.e. divine, demonic, interpersonal, moral, doubt, ultimate meaning), provided open-ended descriptions of r/s struggles that were coded for these domains, and reported on a variety of characteristics related to their r/s struggle (e.g., duration, course, perceived cause, perceived impact on life, spiritual growth/decline resulting from the r/s struggle). Descriptive results from quantitative and qualitative data showed that Veterans perceived r/s struggles, particularly moral struggles, as salient and impactful. Veterans reported substantial positive effects and small negative effects of r/s struggles on their psychological and r/s functioning. Higher perceived negative effects were related to higher levels of r/s struggle domains. Statistical analyses comparing levels of r/s struggles and r/s struggle attributes across sample characteristics (e.g., demographics, psychiatric diagnosis, military experience) showed that, after controlling for religiousness, older age showed a positive association with positive perceived adaptation to r/s struggles, whereas the presence of a mental disorder and distressing military experiences showed associations with negative perceived adaptation. We discuss potential implications of these findings for research and clinical work.

KEYWORDS:

• Religious/spiritual struggles
• Veterans
• spiritual growth/decline
• mental health

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by grant funding from the John Templeton Foundation, Grants #36094 and #59916.This material is also based upon work supported in part by the Department of Veterans Affairs and the VA HSR&D Houston Center for Innovations in Quality, Effectiveness and Safety (CIN13-413). The views expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views, position, or policy of the Department of Veterans Affairs, the South Central MIRECC, Baylor College of Medicine or the United States government.