The virtue of religious faith and its relationship to posttraumatic stress disorder in victims of torture: the unique outcomes of men and women

Abstract

ABSTRACT Three aspects of religious faith: faith-as-faithfulness; faith-as-trust; and faith-as-experience were examined in the lives of torture survivors with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The Fetzer Scale items: Positive and Negative Religious Coping (PRC & NRC), Religious Practices (RP), and Daily Spiritual Experiences (DSE) were applied to a sample of 111 asylees. While none of the correlational hypotheses from the total sample showed a significant association between the variables of PRC, RP, and DSE to PTSD, a post hoc gender analyses revealed significant posttraumatic responses between women and men. Men showed a positive and significant association between PTSD, PRC and NRC, and women, a significant, negative association between Religious Social Support and PTSD. A multiple regression analysis investigated whether NRC, RP and DSE would predict significant variance with PTSD. Only NRC was shown to be a unique, significant predictor of PTSD above and beyond any beneficial effects of Religious Social Support (RSS).