The present article is part of an international study on meaning-making coping aimed at understanding the role of culture in coping in different cultural settings. The international study was conducted among cancer patients in ten countries. This article contains the results obtained in the study in Portugal. The main aim is to investigate the impact of culture on the meaning-making coping methods used by cancer patients. In the present article, only religious/spiritual coping methods are in focus.

Thirty-one participants with various kinds of cancer (e.g., breast, testicular, lymphoma) were interviewed. Nine different kinds of coping methods related to religion and spirituality emerged from analysis of the interviews. These methods, which are categorized on the basis of RCOPE’s five basic religious functions (Pargament, 1997), are: Seeking Spiritual Support, Spiritual Connection, Spiritual Discontent, Benevolent Religious Reappraisal, Punishing God Reappraisal, God’s Trust in Personal Strength, Support from Clergy or Members, Self-Directing Religious Coping and Active Religious Surrender. The study confirms the notion that the strategies people employ when they are stricken by disease, accidents, misfortune, etc., are cultural and temporal constructions. As such, they are valid in concrete contexts and time periods. It is, thus, important that cultural context be taken into consideration when exploring the use of meaning-making coping strategies in different countries.