UC Santa Barbara

This study examined the relationship between religious and meaning-focused coping, their influence of post-traumatic growth and the impact of acculturation on these relationships for Latina women who have experienced sexual assault. Utilizing a descriptive field design, participants were recruited through the online platform, Amazon Mechanical Turk (mTurk) to complete an online-based web survey. One hundred and two participants completed the survey. All participants were female, identified in some way as Latina, Chicana or Hispanic and endorsed experiencing a completed or attempted sexual assault in their lifetimes. Regression analyses revealed that meaning-focused coping, though not religious coping, significantly predicted post-traumatic growth when entered together into the regression. The results suggest the importance of meaning-focused coping when creating interventions for this population. Moderation analysis showed that acculturation did not significantly influence the relationship between religious coping and post-traumatic growth. A second moderation analysis revealed that the Anglo Orientation Scale (AOS), measuring an aspect of acculturation, had a significant main effect and the interaction between AOS and meaning-focused coping was also significant in predicting growth. Additionally, exploratory correlation and regression analyses were employed to determine if any subscales of the meaning-focused coping questionnaire were associated with and predictive of post-traumatic growth. Rational Use of Resources, Long-Term Prevention Strategies, and Goals were significant predictors of growth. Implications from the findings are discussed and suggest a need for future research to explore the role that meaning-focused coping, acculturation and religious coping have on post-traumatic growth.