p24: religious/spiritual coping in childhood cystic fibrosis: a qualitative study

to understand the role of religiousness/spirituality in coping in children with cystic fibrosis (cf). participants were a convenience sample of 23 patients with cf, ages 5 to 12 years and their parent(s) in an ambulatory cf clinic. the design was a focused ethnography including in-depth interviews with children and parent(s), children’s drawings and self-administered written parental questionnaires. analysis used grounded theory. main outcome measures were participants’ views on religion/spirituality in coping with illness. data included 632 quotes organized into 257 codes categorized into 11 themes. one overarching domain emerged from analysis of the 11 themes: religious/spiritual coping composed of 11 religious/spiritual coping strategies. children with cf reported a variety of religious/spiritual coping strategies they nearly always associated with adaptive health outcomes. a preliminary conceptual framework for religious/spiritual coping in children with cf is presented. more study is needed to assess how variability in age, disease type, disease severity, religious/spiritual preference and religious/spiritual intensity affect religious/spiritual coping in children with chronic illness. future studies should also investigate whether physician attention to religious/spiritual coping could assist patients in coping with cf and strengthen the doctor-patient relationship.