Wanda J. Franklin
Published: 2008
Total Pages: 106
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The purpose of this study was to explore relationships among spiritual well-being, perceived stress, and coping in female African Americans with consideration to their smoking status. African American women, compared to all other groups, experience significantly more negative health outcomes in the leading causes of death related to cigarette smoking. In spite of the health outcomes, African American women as less likely to stop smoking than Caucasian women, and they worry about managing stress if they do. Because smoking, an activity cited by smokers as a stress reducer, is subject to personal control, smoking cessation is a target in health care prevention and promotion interventions. Spiritual well-being has been identified as an important resource for coping with stress for African American women. In this cross-sectional, descriptive study, spiritual well-being was measured using the Spiritual Well-being Scale; Perceived stress was measured by the Perceived Stress Scale; and coping was measured by the Ways of Coping Questionnaire. The convenience sample of 125 community-dwelling African American women from included 25 current smokers, 42 ex-smokers, 58 and never smokers. Most women in the study were unmarried or widowed attended college, had a yearly income of $30,000 or more, and had health insurance coverage. Significant relationships were found between the study variables in all subjects using Pearson Product Moment Correlations. Participants who reported higher levels of perceived stress were more likely to report greater use of Positive Problem Solving, Wishful Diversions, and External Social Support coping. A multivariate analysis of covariance was used to statistically control for the pre-existing differences among the three smoking groups on age, yearly income, marital status, education and incentive status. Never smokers reported higher levels of spiritual well-being compared to ex-smokers and current smokers, while current smokers utilized more External Social Support coping strategies compared to ex-smokers and never smokers. Results of multiple regression analysis showed that in African American women in this sample, spiritual well-being moderated the effect of perceived stress on coping, indicating that coping behavior was influenced by spiritual well-being when stress was experienced. Recommendations for future research and implications for nursing practice are discussed.