Religious coping in orthopedic disabled: The case of Hatay

The aim of this study is to identify and understand the religious coping processes of disabled individuals. The study group of the study consists of 9 Christian (Orthodox), 18 Muslim (7 Alevi/Nusayrî and 11 Sunnî) participants with orthopedic disabilities residing in the central and districts of Hatay province. A semi-structured interview form was used in the interviews with the participants, and the data were tried to be explained by content and meaning analysis. The findings obtained revealed that the participants used the words Allah, patience, prayer, fate, kismet, thank goodness, difficult the most during the interviews. Very difficult to tackle the participants who stated that they were faced with a traumatic situation, and to their families, friends and other social groups and religious – moral support has played a key role in overcoming the barriers created their trauma. In the early days of the trauma, the support from family members especially connected them to life. Among family members, on the other hand, the efforts of their mothers and mothers are decently emphasized and appreciated. Participants who were married and especially whose mother had died expressed the support of their spouses together with their mothers more than the support of siblings, fathers and other extended family members. In addition to core and extended family support, participants also attach great importance to other social environmental supports consisting of disabled people's associations, neighborhood, work colleagues and neighbors, as well as non-governmental organizations. The most frequently resorted to act of religious decease among all groups is prayer. The main motive of the prayers is not to get into a worse situation. Patience and gratitude for the existing state in order not to fall for the worse are also among the religious coping actions they often resort to. The belief that fate, trials and hardships suffered will be rewarded in the other world played a fundamental role in their understanding of the reason for their obstacles. Receiving psychological support was a form of coping that participants did not need to apply for or rarely applied for in the initial, secondary and later stages of their disability. Although rarely received psychological support, participants are not usually permanent disability traumatic processes, this process often accept the problems of the disabled, as well as more positive thoughts for the future development of the approach and resulted in striving for the actions of the complications of dealing with a disability. While the most cited religious coping activity after prayer in Christians is belief in fate and waiting for a miracle, the motives of fate, trial, doing good to the obstacle and trust have attracted attention in Sunnis. Alevi/Nusayrî participants, on the other hand, emphasized religious-spiritual coping activities as well as non-religious activities. Along with the belief that the cause of the obstacle is fate, the belief that the obstacle is a punishment and a price for the fact that the participants may have committed sins in their past lives (reincarnation) was expressed more among the Alevi/Nusayrîs than among the Christian and Sunni groups. In the Alevis, God may have created them disabled for an example. Compared to Sunni and Christian groups, Alevi/Nusayrîs explained their disabilities more with medical reasons. Again, Alevi/Nusayrîs have also expressed more that they can get rid of their disabilities with a treatment that will be developed medically. Sunnis are the section who most often attribute the causes of their disabilities to fate and have little or no expectation of miracles and least emphasize medical support. It has been revealed that Christians have a greater perception of a Loving-Protecting God and at the same time refer to positive religious coping focused on emotions relatively more to the Sunni and Alevi/Nusayrî group. Among the participants, Sunnis were the group that applied the most to both emotion- and problem-oriented coping strategies decisively. The negative religious coping activities that manifested themselves with rebellions in the first years of disability were replaced by positive religious coping activities after the meaning and acceptance of disability. Participants were more likely to engage in positive religious coping activities in the later years of their trauma. Almost all Christians, on the other hand, continue to resort to emotion-oriented coping more than the other two segments because they are still in anticipation of a miracle against the effects of this traumatic life event. Although the characteristics of the traumas of disabled people vary from individual to individual, the religious coping elements, activities and reflections referred to are similar. Religion is a part, product and helper of general coping in the coping process and therefore contributes positively. Keywords: Coping, religious coping, Hatay, disability, orthopedic disability.