The relationship between religion and the meaning in suffering: perception of people with infertility

Background Religion is a strategy that emerges, is developed, and is often used to face and overcome an adverse health event. Spirituality is essential to maintaining an individual´s mental health. Spiritual practices (such as prayer, mediation, attending religious services, and spending time in nature, reading religious books or self-help texts) are commonly used to recover mental well-being. Materials and methods For the purpose of the study of exploring the relationship between religion and the meaning of sufering in people with infertility, a cross-sectional study was carried out from September 2019 to June 2020. Informed consent was obtained. The Ethics Committee of The Institute of Health Sciences of Universidade Católica Portuguesa approved this study. The sample was composed of 104 Portuguese adults in the process of engaging or at any stage of a fertility treatment recruited from online forums and social (in)fertility-related websites. The survey comprised demographic questions, information about spiritual and religious beliefs, clinical-health aspects, and the Portuguese version of the Meaning in Sufering Test (MIST-P). Statistical analyses were conducted using SPSS (version 26.0). Results The religious aspect stood out in the sample (n=20; 66.7%). A comparison between the change in the importance of spirituality/religion after the diagnosis of infertility and after the start of fertility treatment confrmed that there were more changes in the latter context than in the former. The meaning of unavoidable sufering was signifcantly associated with changes in religion during the infertility diagnosis phase (p = 0.03) with higher MIST-P scores (M = 3.88, SD = 0.81). Religion was identifed as a source of spiritual strength and support in the individual’s search for meaning in sufering. Conclusions Further longitudinal research is imperative to understand the profle of meaning in sufering and its relationship with religious and spiritual beliefs through long reproductive treatments.