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Spirituality and Religiosity in the Aftermath of a Natural Catastrophe in Italy

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Abstract

The aim of this study is to assess the influence of spirituality and religiousness on the psychological traumatic effects of a catastrophic event in a population that had been exposed to an earthquake compared with a control population that had not been exposed. A total of 901 people have been evaluated using: (1) Brief Multidimensional Measure of Religiousness/Spirituality; (2) Impact of Event Scale and (3) Trauma and Loss Spectrum-Self Report (TALS-SR). Self-perceptions of spirituality and religiousness were used to rank the samples, distinguishing between spiritual and religious, spiritual-only, religious-only and neither spiritual nor religious groups. The sample that had experienced the earthquake showed lower scores in spiritual dimension. The religious-only group of those who were exposed to the earthquake demonstrated TALS-SR re-experiencing and arousal domain scores similar to the population that was not exposed. A weakening of spiritual religiosity in people having difficulty coping with trauma is a consistent finding. We further observed that the religious dimension helped to buffer the community against psychological distress caused by the earthquake. The religiosity dimension can positively affect the ability to cope with traumatic experiences.

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Acknowledgments

Authors report no financial relationships with commercial interests.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mental Health, L’Aquila, Italy

    Paolo Stratta

  2. Department of Psychiatry, Neurobiology, Pharmacology and Biotechnology, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy

    Paolo Stratta, Giulio Perugi, Cristina Toni & Liliana Dell’Osso

  3. Department of Experimental Medicine, University of L’Aquila, Via Vetoio, Coppito II, 67100, L’Aquila, Italy

    Cristina Capanna, Ilaria Riccardi & Alessandro Rossi

Authors
  1. Paolo Stratta
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  2. Cristina Capanna
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  3. Ilaria Riccardi
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  4. Giulio Perugi
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  5. Cristina Toni
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  6. Liliana Dell’Osso
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  7. Alessandro Rossi
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Correspondence to Alessandro Rossi.

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Stratta, P., Capanna, C., Riccardi, I. et al. Spirituality and Religiosity in the Aftermath of a Natural Catastrophe in Italy. J Relig Health 52, 1029–1037 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-012-9591-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-012-9591-z

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