Prayer Coping, Disclosure of Trauma, and Mental Health Symptoms Among Recently Deployed United States Veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan Conflicts

Abstract

U.S. military veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts are at risk for developing adverse mental health symptoms. This study was conducted to examine the associations between prayer coping, attitudes toward trauma disclosure, and mental health symptoms (posttraumatic stress disorder [PTSD] and depression) among 110 U.S. veterans who had returned from deployments in Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom within the previous 6 months. Bivariate analyses revealed that prayer coping was positively correlated with an urge to talk about potentially traumatic experiences. When controlling for combat exposure, social support, and disclosure attitudes, multivariate regression analyses indicated that two of the prayer functions—praying for assistance and for calm and focus—were each uniquely linked with less PTSD and depressive symptomatology. In addition, a reliance on avoidant prayer was uniquely correlated with greater depressive symptomatology. These findings support emerging ideas about prayer as a form of trauma disclosure and highlight the relevance of this approach to coping for veterans as they readjust to civilian life.