Faith in GOD and its Effect on Resilience among Individuals Affected by COVID-19

Description

Page: 413-417

Deepthi Balla (Department of Psychology and Parapsychology, Andhra University, Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh)

COVID-19 swept across population of the world and millions lost their family members. Doctors too were in despair witnessing deaths. In such circumstances, survivors thanked God while still in the grief of lost ones. In this study, the investigator hypothesized that faith in GOD has an effect on the resilience of individuals who are directly or indirectly suffering from COVID-19. A sample of 200 individuals of different faith groups are taken for the present study. Santa Clara Strength of Religious Faith Questionnaire by Plante and Boccaccini (1997); a 10-item scale. The Pandemic Grief Scale by Lee and Neimeyer (2020); is a 5-item scale; Resilience Scale (Singh, Junnarkar, & Kaur, 2016); is a 31-items scale and finally Spirituality Scale (Singh, Junnarkar, & Kaur, 2016) is a 29-item scale were used to assess the variables under study. Data was collected from three groups namely Hindu religious organizations, Churches and common households using convenience sampling. The sample consisted of 73.50 % not directly affected by COVID while 26.50 who are affected directly by COVID-19. The sample consisted of 16-65 years old. Factorial Analysis revealed that self-efficacy is loading significantly with resilience mean scores (t= 61.586; p<0.01), while meaningful self-subscale of spirituality with resilience mean scores. High faith is associated with resilience mean scores (F=6.15; p =0.014). Faith is found to be a significant factor for resilience in the sample. The inclusion of more religious faiths and atheists is also recommended.