• Sanea Mihaljević, Branka Aukst-Margetić, Bjanka Vuksan-Ćusa, Elvira Koić, and Milan Milošević.
• Psychiatry Department, General Hospital Virovitica, Virovitica, Croatia. saneanadj@gmail.com
• Psychiat Danub. 2012 Sep 1; 24 (3): 292-7.

BackgroundHopelessness is a strong predictor of suicide which is closely associated with PTSD in war veterans. Previous studies showed that if religious faith in war veterans was weakened it contributed to more extensive current use of mental health services. War trauma experience can weaken religious faith as well as strengthen it. It partly depends on religious coping which can be positive or negative.Subjects And MethodsIn our work we present correlation between hopelessness (measured with Beck Hopelessness Scale) and style of religious coping (positive or negative, measured with R-COPE) in 111 Croatian war veterans with PTSD and 39 healthy volunteers.ResultsVeterans with PTSD were more hopeless than healthy volunteers, and had greater usage of negative religious coping. In PTSD group, less hopeless veterans showed greater extent in use of positive religious coping strategies.ConclusionThese findings suggest that experts treating male combat veterans with PTSD should inquire about religious coping of the individual. Positive religious coping should be encouraged while negative religious coping should be addressed appropriately.

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