Lynne E. Broderick, MPH, Crawford Research Institute, Shepherd Center, 2020 Peachtree Road, Atlanta, GA 30309, 404-367-1348, lynne_broderick@shepherd.org and James S. Krause, PhD, College of Health Professions, Medical University of South Carolina, 19 Hagood Avenue, Suite 910, Charleston, SC 29425.

Spinal cord injury (SCI) requires several types of adaptations in the days, months and years after SCI onset, not the least of which is coping with the physical, social, and emotional changes an individual experiences. One of the most common methods of coping is through spirituality. The purpose of this study is to examine positive and negative religious coping strategies of African Americans and Caucasians with newly acquired SCI who were patients in a large rehabilitation hospital in the Southeast. There were 203 participants, 148 Caucasians and 55 African Americans. The primary measure was the Religious Coping Scale (RCOPE), which measures religious coping on 17 different scales reflective of positive and negative religious coping, 9 of which were used in the current study. African Americans scored significantly higher on 8 of the 9 scales: Benevolent Religious Reappraisal (+), Punishing God Reappraisal (-), Demonic Reappraisal (-), Reappraisal of God’s Power (-), Collaborative/Low Self-directing Religious Coping (+), Active Religious Surrender (+), Passive Religious Deferral (-), Pleading for Direct Intercession (-) and Religious Focus as well as the overall positive and negative religious coping scales (positive: F=13.7, p< .000; negative: F=27.2, p < .000). When a stressful event happens, different coping techniques are utilized. Higher scores for African Americans on both positive and negative coping scales indicates more use of spirituality in everyday life. While the higher positive coping scores would appear to indicate a more spiritual individual, negative religious coping does not indicate a lesser degree of spirituality, rather it highlights a different way of using spiritual beliefs to cope.

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