Faith through the storm: Older age, religiosity and hope predict post-traumatic growth after Hurricane Ida

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

We examined associations among age, religiosity, state hope and post-traumatic growth (PTG) in 128 adults after the 2021 Hurricane Ida (M age = 54.5 years, SD = 19.6, age range 18–88 years). Half of the participants experienced structural damage to homes and property (directly affected) while the other half lived farther inland and had less damage and storm disruption (indirectly affected). All were tested in person or virtually via Zoom platform in a single session where they completed a religiosity questionnaire, the State Hope Scale (SHS) and the Current-Standing Post-traumatic Growth Inventory–Short Form (C-PTGI-SF). Results indicated that age, current health, three dimensions of religious experience, and state hope (agency and pathways subscales) were significant correlates of PTG. Hierarchical regression analyses confirmed that agency and religiosity were positively associated with PTG after variance due to age and health had been controlled for. These findings confirm prior research on religious coping after a disaster and extend the literature to include PTG across samples who varied in hurricane-related damage and disruption. Implications of these data for clergy and faith-based communities who serve disaster impacted communities are discussed.