Date of Award
9-6-2024
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
Sociology
First Advisor
Anne Figert
Abstract
Religion serves an important role in meaning-making and coping among people across various religious backgrounds and traditions. For religious people, religion not only serves as a framework for making sense of the world and everyday experience, but more so, in the face of aversive events, it provides a hermeneutical tool for reinterpreting such negative events in a more positive light to make them bearable. This study explored the role of religion in illness meaning making and coping among SSACI in the United States to understand the influence of religion on their illness behavior. To achieve this aim, a phenomenological qualitative study of SSACI was conducted. Thirteen (13) participants (5 Catholics, 7 Evangelicals, and 1 Baptist) were interviewed to collect data. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the data. The findings showed that all the participants turned to their religion as a meaningful resource for making sense of their illness. None reported religious alienation, albeit when confronted by life threatening illness, many had initially struggled spiritually by questioning their faith and relationship with God. The emerged themes suggested that this period of spiritual struggle was short-lived and transitory, and paved way for a crucial process of reattribution and reinterpretation of illness experience in a more positive way. In so doing, the participants used religious meaning-making framework to enhance their coping and thus brought about transformation and growth in their religious life and faith commitment. Consequent upon all this, this thesis argued that the need for spiritual care especially for religious minority groups need not be peripheral but central to their health care management. It called for health care policies oriented toward wholistic care.
Recommended Citation
Njoku, Okechukwu Camillus, "The Role of Religion in Illness Meaning Making and Coping Among Sub-Saharan African Christian Immigrants (SSACI) in the US" (2024). Master's Theses. 4553.
https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_theses/4553
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