Religious Coping and Diabetes Self-Care Behaviors Among Adults with Diabetes in Saudi Arabia: A Cross Sectional Study

Background: Religious coping is an important psychosocial resource that may influence how individuals adapt to chronic illnesses and engage in health-related behaviors. While studies have associated religion with the effective management of diabetes, the involvement of religious coping, both positive and negative, in the self-care of diabetic patients has been underexplored. The aim of this study was to quantify the association of religious coping with diabetes self-care among adults in Saudi Arabia. Methods: We used a cross-sectional study among 413 adults with diabetes. Positive and negative religious coping were assessed using the Brief Religious Coping Scale (Brief RCOPE), and diabetes self-care was measured using the Summary of Diabetes Self-Care Activities (SDSCA) questionnaire. Multivariable linear regression models were used to examine associations between religious coping and diabetes self-care after adjustment for sociodemographic and clinical characteristics. We also used quantile regression to assess whether associations varied across the distribution of diabetes self-care scores. Results: The finding showed that positive religious coping was significantly and positively associated with diabetes self-care (β = 0.44, 95% CI: 0.18 to 0.70), while negative religious coping did not show significant association (β = 0.04, 95% CI: −0.13 to 0.22). Quantile regression analyses demonstrated significant positive associations between positive religious coping and diabetes self-care at the 25th percentile (β = 0.41, 95% CI: 0.10 to 0.73), 50th percentile (β = 0.50, 95% CI: 0.11 to 0.89), and 75th percentile (β = 0.48, 95% CI: 0.03 to 0.92), with the strongest association observed at the 90th percentile (β = 0.95, 95% CI: 0.42 to 1.48). Negative religious coping was not significantly associated with self-care at any quantile. Conclusions: Our finding showed significant association between positive religious coping and diabetes self-care, whereas negative religious coping showed no significant association. The findings suggest that positive religious coping may represent an important psychosocial resource associated with diabetes self-care. Future longitudinal studies incorporating objective clinical outcomes are needed to further examine the role of religious coping in diabetes management.