Are religious/spiritual beliefs and behaviours associated with how people cope with traumatic events? Findings from the parental generation of a UK birth cohort

Abstract

This article examines the relationship between religiosity and response to traumatic life events in a UK longitudinal birth cohort study. Previous literature on coping focuses on how individuals use religion to cope with such events, whereas this article looks more broadly at whether aspects of religiosity are associated with how individuals are affected by life events. Four religiosity measures were used: religious belief, religious affiliation, religious attendance and latent classes of religion. Life events were measured by asking participants whether a range of 43 events (including events related to death, illness/health, relationships and work/finances) had happened to them in the previous 8 months and how much it affected them. While the aim of this study was predominantly descriptive, we adjusted for a range of covariates to rule out some common sources of confounding (including maternal age at birth, parity and measures of socioeconomic position). In all models, there was little association between religiosity and response to these events. These results indicate that, in this UK population at least, religion does not appear to impact individuals’ short-term responses to traumatic life events. While further research is needed to confirm the extent to which these findings are both generalisable and warrant a causal interpretation, they do suggest that factors other than religion may be more important in shaping peoples’ coping responses to traumatic events.