When reliance on religion falters: Religious coping and post-traumatic stress symptoms in older adults after multiple disasters

ABSTRACT

In 2005, Hurricane Katrina brought devastating losses to Gulf Coast communities. In this study, Katrina survivors answered open-ended questions about coping with hurricane-related challenges. The sample was partitioned into low and high scorers on a non-organizational religiosity scale. Content analyses revealed that low scorers described secular strategies, relied less on a church community in the aftermath of the storms, and exhibited active religious coping. High scorers referenced a greater need for God and faith, highly valued their church as a coping resource, and described passive religious coping strategies. Implications of the loss of familiar religious routines after disaster are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Disasters
• non-organizational religiosity
• PTSD
• qualitative methods

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Sr. Mary Keefe and Fr. John Arnone of Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church in Violet, LA, for their assistance with recruitment. We thank Susan McNeil and Janet Hood of the St. Bernard Council on Aging, and Sean Warner of the Gulf Coast Trust Bank in St. Bernard for their assistance and providing space for testing. We thank Kelli Broome, Susan Brigman, Pamela Nezat, Mary Beth Tamor, Benjamin Staab, and Annie Crapanzano for their help with data collection and Farra Mughal and Kortney Wooten for assistance with data scoring.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by grants from the Louisiana Board of Regents and the Louisiana State University Office of Research and Economic Development Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) program. This support is gratefully acknowledged.