Spiritual encountering of divorced women in adjusting to the divorce phenomenon: A qualitative study

Considering the stressful nature of the phenomenon of divorce, its unpleasant consequences particularly for women, and furthermore the increasing emphasis on the role of religious and spiritual beliefs in coping with stressful life events, the present study aimed to explore the personal experience by which divorced women cope with divorce via religious / spiritual beliefs. A qualitative study using content analysis approach, was conducted. Deep-interviews were held with 18 divorced women. In this study a purposeful data sampling method was applied. For the analysis of the data, the Graneheim's model of content analysis was applied containing verbatim transcription, reading interviews several times to obtain a sense of the whole, division of the text into meaning units and coding them, categorization of the codes into sub- categories and categories, and finally formulation of the latent content into a theme. Four categories were obtained from data that included: "Turning to God", "Believe in divine support", "Doing religious practice", and "Spiritual surrender". Among these categories, the theme "Spiritual encounter" emerged as an effective strategy. In agreement with the perceived efficacy of spiritual encountering in these women, it is suggested that specialists should pay more attention to divorced women’s religious and spiritual beliefs, integrate them in their supportive programs and help divorced individuals towards a better adjustment.