Assessing the role of attachment to God, meaning, and religious coping as mediators in the grief experience.

Research has examined the relationship of styles of attachment to others and meaning with grief and the stress-related growth process. Less has been written on styles of attachment to God and patterns of religious coping and how these constructs may impact adjustment in persons dealing with loss. This study examines the roles of attachment to God, meaning, and religious coping as mediators in the grief experience for a sample of 93 individuals who experienced a significant death in the prior year. Results suggest that a more secure style of attachment to God was directly and indirectly associated with lower depression and grief and increased stress-related growth for this sample. Meaning, defined as a sense of purpose and coherence, also emerged as an important construct in this process. Overall goodness-of fit statistics were examined for competing models using structural equation modeling. Secure attachment to God, meaning, and positive religious coping were found to have significant direct and indirect effects on grief and stress-related growth. For some individuals, attachment to God may be an important construct in the experience of meaning following a significant death and may have tremendous potential in its direct and indirect effects on overall outcomes.