The current systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to assess the strength of the relationships between religious/spiritual coping strategies and psychosocial adjustment and physical health in youth with chronic illness.
Faced with medical stressors and uncertainty about their illness, spiritual beliefs and behaviors are important for youth with chronic illness. Research suggests that some spiritual coping strategies are helpful (positive), while others are not (negative), and these dimensions of spiritual coping are important predictors of functioning among youth with chronic illness.
Fourteen studies, published between 1990 and 2015, met inclusion criteria for the meta-analysis and were analyzed using both a fixed and random effect models.
Findings revealed significant, small to moderate associations between negative spiritual coping and more concurrent internalizing problems (REM r = .34), lower quality of life (REM r = -.34), and poorer health (REM r = -.08). Under the fixed, but not random effects model, the combined effects showed small to moderate significant relationships between positive spiritual coping and fewer internalizing problems (r = -.19) and better physical health (r = .19).
The results reveal that spiritual coping is an important coping strategy for pediatric patients. Consistent with findings among adults with chronic illness, negative spiritual coping puts pediatric patients at risk for psychosocial maladjustment and poorer health. Intervention research is needed to determine if targeting spiritual coping improves health and psychosocial well-being.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 2. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 23 March 2016.
All research outputs
#14,712,301
of 22,852,911 outputs
Outputs from Health Psychology Review
#285
of 320 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#168,188
of 300,115 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Health Psychology Review
#11
of 13 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 22,852,911 research outputs across all sources so far. This one is in the 35th percentile – i.e., 35% of other outputs scored the same or lower than it.
So far Altmetric has tracked 320 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 33.7. This one is in the 9th percentile – i.e., 9% of its peers scored the same or lower than it.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 300,115 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one is in the 43rd percentile – i.e., 43% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.
We're also able to compare this research output to 13 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one is in the 15th percentile – i.e., 15% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.
