Contribution of Religious Coping and Social Support to the Subjective Well-Being of Israeli Muslim Parents of Children with Cancer: A Preliminary Study

No single study has examined the subjective well-being (SWB) among Israeli Muslim parents of children treated for cancer. To fill this gap in the literature, this preliminary study espouses a positive psychology orientation and examines the contribution of social support and religious coping to the SWB among this population. The study's sample consisted of 70 Israeli Muslim parents of children who were receiving active treatment for their cancer. Participants were asked to provide demographic information on themselves and their ill child and to complete measures of SWB (that is, positive affect, negative affect, satisfaction with life), social support, and religious coping (that is, positive religious coping, punishing God reappraisal). The authors found that higher scores on social support were correlated with higher scores on satisfaction with life and lower scores on negative affect. Higher scores on positive religious coping were correlated with higher scores on satisfaction with life. Punishing God reappraisal did not correlate with any of the SWB indices. Social support emerged as a partial mediator between positive religious coping and satisfaction with life. Social support and some methods of religious coping seem to enhance the SWB of Israeli Muslim parents of children treated for cancer.