Article Figures & Data
Figures
- Fig 1.
Angels that “look like jellyfish,” “poke your eye,” and “cry in your hands” when caught fly above 7-year-old Jenny’s bed. God, the angels’ boss, is inside her “every second” to make sure she is healthy.
- Fig 2.
Seven-year-old Nicole described Jesus as “taller than me” and “always smiling”; “a Savior that takes away sins” and “helps me get better when I am sick.” Nicole said Jesus’s touch is “nice and soft … like a person’s.”
- Fig 3.
Ten-year-old Chris is sick yet smiling because God (right), with His arm around Chris, “did a miracle or something.” Although his family has never practiced religion, Chris believes prayer could result in a cure for CF.
- Fig 4.
Twelve-year-old Brian believes God (in clouds) created and is everything. God lets illnesses challenge people during this life but sometimes heals mentally, making “you feel better in your head (rather) than mess around with you physically.”.
Tables
Characteristic Participants (n = 23) n % Gender Female 14 61 Male 9 39 Age 5–8 y 15 65 9–12 y 8 35 Disease severity* Excellent 7 30 Good 12 52 Mild 4 17 Subjective intimacy† Yes 17 74 No 6 26 Faith most important‡ Agree 11 48 Do not agree 10 43 Worship attendance§ Regularly 10 43 Not regularly 13 56 ↵* A Shwachman score for CF rated their disease severity.20 Excellent corresponds to near-normal health functioning; mild corresponds to mild emphysema and restricted physical activity requiring frequent rests.
↵† Yes refers to children’s comments that reflect a high level of intimacy with God, such as, “God is in my heart.” No refers to low levels of intimacy or no comments about intimacy. Labels were assigned subjectively by the authors on the basis of the content of the participants’ comments.
↵‡ Parent report of agreement with, “My child’s religious faith is the most important influence in his/her life,” measured on a 5-point Likert scale. Agree includes “strongly agree” and “somewhat agree.” Do not agree includes “neutral,” “somewhat disagree,” and “strongly disagree.”
↵§ Parent report. Regularly includes “weekly or almost weekly” and “once or twice a month.” Not regularly includes “a few times a year,” “only a few times in my life,” and “never.”
Religious/Spiritual Coping Strategy Number of Respondents (%) Illustrative Quotes* 7. Spiritual social support 18 (72%) • My mom and a lot of prayer groups have been praying for me. It feels good to have others pray for me because it stinks being in the hospital. I think it helps, but I don’t know how. • I pray to God that I hope my grandma feels better from her surgery. • I am a Protestant. • If you were poor, God could encourage someone else to bring you food or money or clothes. • I don’t know if anyone is praying for me, but if they were it would feel good because they could find a cure for something! 8. Ritual response 9 (39%) • I go to church to feel better when I’m sick. • Our Father who art in heaven, halleluiahs be thy name, thy kingdom comes, I will be done, as if it is in heaven… 9. Benevolent religious/spiritual reappraisal 6 (26%) • God allows me to have this illness so I can be challenged more in this life. I will be more happy because I am more fulfilled. Having to cope with CF will allow me to progress further in my next life. • God can help people. He can heal them. God doesn’t always help, though; He does the best He can. You say a prayer, and if God can help you, He’ll try and help you, and then, He can heal you of something. • He helps me figure stuff out, like understand when He cannot heal you. 10. Punishing religious/spiritual reappraisal 4 (17%) • I know I’ve sinned a lot. God don’t like it. I don’t know if He punishes. • God gets mad at people if they’re doing something wrong that they aren’t supposed to be doing, but He still loves them. 11. Discontent with God or congregation 2 (9%) • God’s going down in the room so He can make me feel better, but it didn’t work. ↵* Illustrative quotes are slightly paraphrased to increase readability.
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