Religious coping in martyr families, war veterans, and their families: The case of Adana

The aim of this study is to understand and explain the process of religious coping in martyr families, war veterans and their families. The sample of the study consists of 7 war veterans, 7 war veterans' relatives and 17 martyrs' relatives who reside in the province of Adana. In the application phase, semi-structured interview forms were used and the data obtained were subjected to content analysis and semantic analysis. The NVivo10 program was used for content analysis. According to the findings obtained, the most frequently used words by participants are Allah, good, hard, patience and prayer. The most vigorously used religious coping activity is prayer, and the faith of test comes into prominence regarding the explanation of the experience. While the faith of intercession, patience and empathic support are the forefront events in positive religious coping, social support is needed more when trauma is first experienced, and over time, both the need for social support is diminishing and the providing social support is becoming difficult. Getting psychological and psychiatric support from professionals seems to be inadequate in all three groups. This causes the destructive effect of the trauma experienced to be longer and lasting. The mourning that martyr families experienced is generally abnormal type, and in the matter of adaptation to life the siblings comes first, then the spouses, and the last ones are the fathers and the mothers. Although the negative religious coping is seen in the early stages of trauma, its shape is changing with time and it is evolving to emotion-focused positive religious coping. Posttraumatic social adaptation in the war veterans is taking a long time. At this point, the civil society organizations formed by stakeholders has the most important functions just after the family. War veterans' relatives refer gratitude much more in proportion to the other groups. While the wives of the war veterans experience the greatest challenge, they receive the biggest support from family elders. Despite the fact that living traumas are different in quality, religious coping activities used and their reflections are common. Religion contributes emotion-focused and in a positive way in the process of coping.