Culture, Religion & Spirituality in Coping
The Example of Cancer in Patients in Sweden
Studia Sociologica Upsaliensia 53

By Fereshteh Ahmadi
December 2006
Uppsala University Press
Distributed by Coronet Books
ISBN: 9155465897
197 pages, 6 1/2" x 9 1/2"
$53.50 paper original

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Recent research has shown significant associations (negative and positive) between religious and spiritual factors and mental health. Much of this research, however, has been conducted in the US, where religion is an integrated part of most people's lives. Other studies on religious and spiritually oriented coping conducted outside the US have also focused on religious people.

Yet many are non-believers, and many believers do not consider themselves religious, i.e. religion is not an important part of their life. There are also societies in which the dominant culture and ways of thinking dismiss the role of religion in people's lives. Research on religious coping rarely takes these people into consideration.

Thus, the following questions arise: How are religion and spirituality involved in coping when non-believers or non-religious people face difficult events? How do culture and ways of thinking affect people's choice of religious and spiritual coping methods? Proceeding from a cultural approach to coping and health, this book attempts to address these questions by looking at the coping strategies of Swedish cancer patients.

Religion, Medicine

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