Title:
The virtue of religious faith and its relationships to posttraumatic stress disorder in victims of torture.
Author:
Desmond Buhagar
Thesis Advisor:
Ralph L. Piedmont
Committee Member:
Kari A. O'Grady
Committee Member:
Gina M. Magyar-Russel
Committee Member:
Mary C. Cogar
Degree Granting Institution:
Loyola University Maryland--College of Arts and Sciences
Place:
Baltimore (Md.)
Publisher:
Loyola Univeristy Maryland
Date Created:
2011
Type of Resource:
text
Genre:
thesis
Language:
eng
Format:
application/pdf
Physical Form:
electronic
Digital Source:
born digital
Abstract:
This research examined three aspects of religious faith: faith-as-faithfulness; faith-astrust; and faith-as-experience, and their role in the lives of torture survivors suffering from Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). These three theological constructs were mapped to similarly oriented empirical measures from the Fetzer Scale: Positive and Negative Religious Coping (PRC and NRC), Religious Practices (RP), and Daily Spiritual Experiences (DSE), in order to determine if these faith factors contribute anything unique to the traumatic coping of this sample of 111 asylees (47 men, 64 women) coming from mostly sub-Saharan Africa. The dependent variables of posttraumatic stress, anxiety and depression, were derived from the Harvard Trauma Questionnaire (HTQ-30), and the Hopkins Symptoms Checklist (HSCL-25), as well as a composite PTSD measure which combined these two highly correlated instruments. The three correlational hypotheses of this study looked for significant associations between the variables of PRC, RP and DSE, and their relationship to PTSD, none of which showed a significant association for the total sample. However, post hoc gender analyses revealed that men showed a positive and significant association between PTSD and PRC [r(44) = .49, p Less than .01], and PTSD and NRC [r(44) = .43, p less than .01], which at first glance, appeared anomalous. Likewise, a post hoc analysis for women showed a significant negative association with PTSD and Religious Social Support (RSS), indicating a beneficial relationship between the two [r(54) = -.40, p Less than .01]. The regression analyses found that only negative religious coping provided significant variance for the total sample, such that: ΔR2 = .09, partial F(1, 91) = 9.08, p less than .01, β = .29. In the post hoc gender analysis it was discovered that the larger part of this variance was taken up by men, such that, ΔR2 = .17, partial F(1, 40) = 8.04, pLess than .01, β = .41. Neither RP nor DSE made any significant difference to the coping patterns of either men or women. The conflated used of both PRC and NRC for men may represent and attempt to utilize whatever religious and spiritual resources were available to them in order to cope with latent traumatic stress induced by prior torture experiences, as well as by cultural displacement. Even with this simultaneous usage, mens’ symptoms were negatively associated to PTSD, indicating that these efforts were not directly alleviating PTSD symptoms. This explanation meshes with some theories of PTSD which suggest that a deconstruction of meaning is at the root of poor coping for those who have experienced serious traumatic stress, and which may be more indicative of an early stage of PTSD recovery. Within the sphere of theological and pastoral reflection the phenomenon known as theodicy may help to explain how a period of meaning-deconstruction can ensue out of experiences of extreme traumatic stress which threaten human survival. For women, no significant relationships were found between PRC, NRC and PTSD, although there was a negative association between RSS and PTSD. This suggests that women may have utilized faith-based relationships in order to cope positively with PTSD. A central limitation of this study may be whether some of the religious scale items such PRC and NRC can accurately measure these factors. This study explores reasons why the variables of Forgiveness (F) and DSE showed no significant relationships to traumatic coping in this sample. Pastoral implications of this study may point to the importance of developing unique treatment protocols for both men and women suffering from PTSD.
Subject:
Virtue
Subject:
Faith
Subject:
Torture
Subject:
Post-traumatic stress disorder-- Case studies
Subject:
Vertus
Subject:
Foi
Subject:
Post-traumatic stress disorder
Subject:
Academic dissertation
Subject:
Academic theses
Subject:
Case studies
Degree:
Doctor of Philosophy
Level:
Doctoral
Discipline:
Pastoral Counseling
Restrictions on Access:
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Identifier:
BuhagarDC-11