Conserving resources during chronic disaster: Impacts of religious and meaning-focused coping on Botswana drought survivors.

Objective: This study explored the trauma symptoms of those who have endured a multiyear drought in Botswana, an arid, pastoral, and primarily Christian Southern African nation. Particularly, this study used conservation of resources theory to consider the effects of disaster-related resource loss (DRL) and the psychology of religion literature to investigate the roles of religious or spiritual (R/S) and meaning-focused coping.

Method: Three hundred undergraduates in Botswana completed culturally adapted measures of their DRL, positive and negative R/S coping, search for meaning in life (meaning-focused coping), lifetime trauma exposure, and current trauma symptoms.