Differentiating religious coping from Islamic identification in patient and non-patient Pakistani Muslims

Abstract

Pakistanis suffering from major medical problems and non-patient controls responded to two factors from the Psychological Measure of Islamic Religiousness that operationalised religious coping. Punishing Allah Reappraisal correlated positively with Poorer Psychological Functioning and External Control and negatively with Self-Adjustment. Factor analytic procedures demonstrated that the Islamic Positive Religious Coping and Identification subscale (IPRCIS) contained three dimensions. These Positive Islamic Coping, Islamic Identification, and Extra-Prayer Commitment factors displayed similar linkages with single-item measures of religious orientation and religious interest. Positive Islamic Coping also had noteworthy implications for understanding Muslim religious coping. These data most importantly demonstrated that the IPRCIS is a multidimensional construct, that Punishing Allah Reappraisal is maladaptive, and that the influences of beneficial Muslim forms of coping may be complex.

Keywords:

• religious coping
• Islam
• Pakistan
• illness
• psychological adjustment