RESEARCH: "Construction of the Pakistani Religious Coping Practices Scale: Correlations With Religious Coping, Religious Orientation, and Reactions to Stress Among Muslim University Students"

Abstract

The Pakistani Religious Coping Practices Scale was created to specifically record Muslim religious approaches to coping. A sample of 129 Pakistani university students responded to Urdu versions of this new instrument along with the Brief Religious Coping (RCOPE) Scale, single-item assessments of religious orientation and religious interest, and scales recording anxious, depressed, and hostile reactions to stress. The Pakistani Religious Coping Practices Scale and the two Brief RCOPE Scales correlated positively. The Brief RCOPE Negative Religious Coping scale predicted higher levels of all three symptoms of stress but was unrelated to religious motivation and interest. The new Muslim coping practices measure and the Positive Religious Coping scale were associated with higher levels of religious motivation and interest, and both also exhibited a negative relation with depression once the variance associated with Negative Religious Coping was removed. These data most importantly confirmed that the Pakistani Religious Coping Practices Scale and the Brief RCOPE were useful for examining how Pakistani Muslims cope with stress.