Spiritual Coping with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: a qualitative study

Recognizing the ability to spiritually cope with the posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in patients may facilitate their improvement. The present study aims to explain spiritual ways which PTSD victims can apply to cope with their sufferings.. The present qualitative study included 20 patients who were selected through purposive sampling and who were interviewed through semi-structured interviews. Content analysis was performed on the collected information.. Spiritual coping of the PTSD patients were recognized at two levels: (1) a religious attitude, constituting "religious beliefs", "religious emotions" and "religious behaviors"; and (2) a nationalistic attitude, constituting "patriotism" and "pride in self-sacrifice".. Spiritual coping of the participants revealed religious and nationalistic attitudes towards the outcomes of PTSD. Spiritual values of these patients are encouraged to be applied in order to facilitate their recovery and as an effective self-help strategy..