Religious Coping Scale Of Christians Structure And Measurement

Religious coping is a very important concept of western psychology of religion,and also a mediator factor in exploring the relationships of religious beliefs and psychological or physical health.Cultural and academic background difference has been found significantly between domestic and international understanding and usage of religious coping.In China,the theoretical and empirical studies was only in the starting stage,and there was no Chinese religious coping measurement tool for the religious.Therefore, to study the basic theory of religious coping,to clarify its definition and structure elements,and to develop a measurement tool with samples of Chinese christian would be very important not only to Chinese Christian’psychological and physical health education but also to international psychology of religion.This study proposed the definition and model of religious coping for Christian by analyzing literature,developed Religious Coping Scale of Christians(RCSC) by combining the open interview and quantitative study,and discussed the current situation and influencing factors of religious coping of984Chinese Christian with Religious Coping Scale of Christians,Self-rating depression scale,life satisfactory index.The results are mainly as follows:(l)Christian’s religious coping means that Christian use religious beliefs,religious behaviors,religious emotions and interpersonal interaction to understand and facilitate problem-solving to prevent and alleviate emotional pain and physical discomfort in face of stressful life events,which contains positive religious coping and negative religious coping.Positive religious coping is defined that under safe and faithful relationship with God,christian seek the positive meaning,pray for guidance and help,seek spiritual,emotional and material help from other Christian in church.through self reflection and bad behaviors changes or participation in more religious activities,in order to get joy and approval from God,and gain gratitude,quietness and joy to facilitate problem-solving.Negative religious coping is defined that under unsafe and distrust relationship with God,christian perceive negative meaning,avoid contacts with God and church,suspect God’s power,gain anger,complaint and desperation to hinder problem-solving.(2)The dimension of Christian’religious coping was confirmed by qualitative analysis, exploratory and confirmatory factory analysis. RCSC has33items,among which positive religious coping subscale consists of23items and negative religious coping subscale consists of12items.Results of the confirmatory factors analysis suggested the construct validity of RCSC was good.The main fit indexes of modified model were as folio ws:χ2/df=3.62、CFI=0.98、 NNFI=0.97、 NFI=0.97、 RMSEA=0.052and SRMR=0.051.A significant positive correlation was found between positive religious coping and life satisfactory index(r=0.504,p<0.01),and a significant negative correlation was found between negative religious coping and depression(r=-0.472,p<0.01).Positive religious coping subscale’s internal consistency reliability is0.933, and its half-split reliability is0.898,and its two-week-test-retest reliability is0.941.While negative religious coping subscale’s internal consistency reliability is0.835, and its half-split reliability is0.804,and its two-week-test-retest reliability is0.857.(3)This research has set up the Norm Standard within a certain scope. The T score were used, with the mean score being50, and the standard deviation being10. The scores above60were considered high and low if below40. The typical features of discretion groups are described.(4)This research discussed the current situation and influential factors of984Christian with RCSC,self-rating depression scale and life satisfactory index.The results showed that the average score of positive religious coping subscale and negative religious coping subscale were3and2respectively,which reflected that christian often used positive religious coping and sometimes used negative religious coping.Significant differences in grade,urban or not,age,marriage conditions,length of being a christian,father and mother being a Christian or not were found in positive and negative religious coping,while no significant education difference was found.The results of regression analysis showed that life satisfactory,depression,age,length of being a Christian and urban or not entered regression equation and had significantly direct effects on positive religious. coping,while life satisfactory and depression accounts for the most significant predictive power.For negative religious coping,depression,life satisfactory and marriage conditions entered regression equation and had significantly direct effects,while depression accounts for the most significant predictive power. Meanwhile.positive religious coping and depression had a significant negative correlation,but it had a significant positive correlation with life satisfactory;negative religious coping and depression had a significant positive correlation.but it had a significant negative correlation with life satisfactory.