RELIGIOUS COPING AND THE THREAT OF HEART-TRANSPLANTATION

The concern of this article is to examine the relationship between rel igiousness and state-and-trait anxiety in a sample of cardiac transpla ntation candidates. Religiousness was made operational by integrating measures of religious orientation and religious coping with cluster an alysis to form religious coping profiles. Three religious coping profi les were identified: Deferring/Collaborators, Self-Directors, and Ecle ctic. Analyses of variance indicated that coping profiles were signifi cantly different in their report of trait anxiety, such that the Eclec tics reported a good deal more trait anxiety than did the Self-Directo rs. This leads to a discussion of the implications for the clinical pr esentation of religious coping profiles in cardiac transplantation can didates.