Religious coping in time of covid 19 in tunisia

INTRODUCTION: Religion belongs among well-documented coping strategies, through which one can understand and deal with stressors. OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to examine religious coping responses face to the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic among Tunisian people. METHODS: The survey was conducted using the online anonymous questionnaires and distributed through social networks from 24 April to 23 May 2020. It included sociodemographic questions, participants’ experience of SARS-CoV-2related stressful events and the frequency of religious practice during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Brief RCOPE was used to assess religious coping. RESULTS: Our study included 80 participants: 71.3%female and 42.5%married. The mean age of the participants was 29.30 years (SD = 8.72). The religion of all participants was Islam, and 72.5% of them had religious practices. Participants reported much lower levels of negative religious coping than positive religious coping (5% versus 37.5%). There were no significant differences in religious coping activities as a function of gender (p=0.180, p= 0.192). Significant relationships were found only for demographic variables: level of education with Higher-educated reported more PRC (p=0.002). Having a family member with a suspected or confirmed infection was correlated with PRC (p=0.016).Concern with becoming infected or having a friend with a suspected or confirmed infection did not correlate with any coping strategy (p=0.112; p=0.489). No correlation was found between religious commitment and religious coping (p=0.897; p=0.504) however increasing religious activity during this pandemic was correlated with PRC (p=0.013). CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that lockdown experience is associated with higher use of NRC strategies.