Perceived Stress and Emotional Well-Being: The mediating role of Religious coping among Cancer Patients

This study examined the mediating role of religious coping on the relationship between perceived stress and emotional well-being among cancer patients. On a sample consisting of 155 cancer patients were administrated the Brief Religious Coping Scale (Pargament, Koenig & Perez, 2000), the Perceived Stress Scale (Cohen, Kamarck & Mermelstein, 1983) and the positive affect and negative affect schedule (Watson, Clark & Tellegen, 1988). Structural equation modeling was used to assess the mediating role of religious coping on the relationship between perceived stress and emotional well-being among cancer patients. Results indicated that there is a significant positive correlation between perceived self-efficacy with positive religious coping, significant positive correlation between perceived helplessness with negative religious coping, significant positive correlation between perceived self-efficacy with positive affect and a significant positive correlation between perceived helplessness with negative affect. Results also indicated that the relationship between perceived stress and emotional well-being by positive and negative religious coping strategies is mediated. All of the regression weights in the proposed model were statistically significant and model' predictors accounted for 80 and 60% of the variance in positive and negative affect, respectively. These findings show that in cancer patients when encountering to stressful experiences, difference in scores of positive and negative affect among patients, accounted for by difference in degree of positive and negative religious coping strategies.