Religious and Spiritual Coping Elements in Dealing with Chronic Diseases: A Qualitative Exploration of the Perspectives of Older Iranian Zoroastrians.

Abstract

Religiosity is a desirable alternative coping strategy for many people when facing negative life events including age-related infirmities and stressors. Religious coping mechanisms (RCMs) have beeninvestigated meagerly with regard toreligious minorities aroundthe world and, to the best of current knowledge, no study has beenconducted on Iranian Zorostrians to explore their religious coping mechanisms in dealing with age-related chronic diseases. This qualitative research, therefore, was aimed to canvas perceptions about RCMs that are utilizedby Iranian Zoroastrian older adults to deal with chronic diseases in the city of Yazd, Iran. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with purposefully selected fourteen Zoroastrian older patients and four Zoroastrian priests in 2019. The main extracted themes included performing certain religious behaviors and having sincere religion-based beliefs as employed mechanisms for better coping with their chronic diseases. Prevalent dilemmas/barriers with mitigating impact on the coping capacities in dealing with a persistent illness was another predominant identified theme. Identification of RCMs that religious and ethnic minorities are using to better confront diverse life events, such as chronic diseases, could pave the path to expand new approaches in planing sustainable disease management and proactive quality of life improvement initiatives.