The belief in miracle, as a modality of spiritual/religious coping (SRC) strategy in the face of stress and psychic suffering, has been discussed in psychological literature with regard to its positive or negative role on the health and well-being of patients and family members. In contemporary times, where pseudo-conflicts between religion and science should have been long overcome, there is still some tendency of interpreting belief in miracle – as the possibility of a cure granted by divine intervention, modifying the normal course of events in a bleak medical diagnosis – as having unhealthy impacts in the care and treatment of health. This position seeks to find a base in the three characteristics of hoping in a miracle, frequently pointed out by psychological literature: (a) it would imply a negation of reality instead of its confrontation; (b) it would be a coping strategy focused on emotion instead of the problem; (c) it would imply seeking to modify the supposed desire of God by extra-natural facts. In this study, we shall critically discuss this position and the dangers of its crystallization by the use of SRC scales in which the act of praying for a miracle is previously classified as a negative strategy. We revisit some tendencies in psychological literature about the subject, taking into consideration the various facets of miracle, sociocultural facts, elements of idiographic nature, and their profound outcomes in the lives of people especially in health contexts. We illustrate the dangers of a hasty generalization of the results of nomothetic studies about the role of belief in miracle with two examples of research in the Brazilian context: one carried out with pregnant women with fetal malformation and the other with family members caring for children and adolescents with cancer under chemotherapeutic treatment. In both studies, the results do not confirm the predominance of the negative aspects associated with the act of praying for a miracle, which we discuss and analyze in light of the phenomenological perspective. In this perspective, “pray for a miracle”, as experienced by patients and caregivers, can be recognized as an act of openness to life (instead of isolation in a bleak perspective), bolstering hope, and the resignification of reality in the psyche.

As a continuation of the previous paper, Praying for a Miracle – Negative or Positive Impacts on Health Care, published in this research topic, this second paper aims at delving deeper into the same theme, but now from a simultaneously practical and conceptual approach. With that in mind, we revisit three theoretical models based on evidence, through which we can understand the role of a miracle in hospital settings and assess its impact in health contexts. For each of the models described, we seek to illustrate the possible outcomes of belief in miracles as a modality of religious coping in situations of stress and suffering experienced by patients and caregivers in the face of gloomy diagnoses on coming across the limits of medicine to revert certain illnesses (e.g., child cancer) or biological conditions (e.g., fetal malformation). We posit that the judgment about how such a mechanism is healthy or not for each of the people involved (patient, caregiver, and/or health professional) depends on the modulation between the conception of the miracle adopted by the patient and/or caregiver and the concrete outcomes of the way of responding to the situations that accompany the gravity of the illness or condition. To better understand this process of psychological modulation that accompanies belief in miracles, we revisit the concepts of spirituality, religiosity, and religion, pointing out the connections and distinctions between them from a phenomenological perspective. We then present a conceptual model that takes these connections and distinctions into consideration to foster an understanding of miracles, their relations with the diversity of experiences of people who meet in hospital settings (patients, caregivers, and health professionals), and their respective impacts on healthcare.

Desde a preparação para o vestibular e durante a graduação, os estudantes de medicina convivem com adversidades que proporcionam redução na sua qualidade de vida. Estudos reconhecem que as crenças dos alunos impactam positivamente no relacionamento com a equipe e com os pacientes, mas há poucos estudos sobre a interferência do Coping Religioso/Espiritual (CRE) na qualidade de vida destes estudantes. Trata-se de um estudo semi-qualitativo baseado na escala Likert, transversal, observacional, no qual foi avaliada a relação entre qualidade de vida e o CRE utilizado por estudantes de medicina de um Centro Universitário no Distrito Federal, realizado entre outubro de 2019 e outubro de 2020. Foram utilizados os questionários WHOQOL-Brief para avaliar a qualidade de vida e RCOPE-Brief para avaliar o CRE. Os dados de 230 questionários foram processados no programa SSPS-IBM versão 22.0. Foi utilizado o nível de significância estatística de 5% e utilizou-se testes de Shapiro-Wilks, Mann-Whitney, Qui-Quadrado e Correlação de Sperman. Participaram 230 estudantes com uma média de idade de 23,08 ± 3,99 (18 - 45 anos). Foi observado que a religiosidade está presente em 81,8% da amostra, a maioria faz parte de religiões ligadas ao Cristianismo e frequentam instituições religiosas semanalmente. Os alunos apresentaram um valor de moderado a alto de CRE positivo e baixos valores de CRE negativo. O domínio psicológico apresentou a menor média, seguido do domínio físico da qualidade de vida. Não foi observada diferença significativa da qualidade de vida geral quando separada pelos anos do curso. Estudantes que possuíam maior tendência a apresentar um CRE total baixo, que é relacionado ao uso maior do CRE negativo, estavam associados à baixa qualidade de vida e acadêmicos com maior inclinação a apresentar um CRE total alto, que é relacionado ao uso maior do CRE positivo, estavam associados a uma boa qualidade de vida. Conclui-se que o CRE apresentado pelos estudantes têm associação com todos os domínios da sua qualidade de vida. E, caso o estudante apresente preferencialmente o CRE Negativo, sua qualidade de vida pode se alterar em maiores proporções.

Congenital Foetal Malformity (CFM) is a stress factor for pregnant women, and religiosity and spirituality have an important role to play in coping with it. The aim of this study was to identify the correlation between stress, as perceived by pregnant women with CFM, and the diverse forms of religious/spiritual coping (RSC). This is a cross-sectional study with pregnant women treated in a hospital specializing in obstetrics in the city of Brasília, located in the Federal District in Brazil. The sample comprised 99 expectant mothers. Religious/spiritual coping was measured using the RCOPE scale devised by Pargament, Koenig and Perez (2000) which was subsequently translated into Portuguese and adapted for Brazil by Panzini and Bandeira. Stress was evaluated using the Perceived Stress Scale of Cohen, Kamarck and Mermelstein (1983), translated and validated by Luft et al. (2007). For the purposes of analysis, the SPSS-IBM 22.0 software application was employed, with a statistical analysis using means, standard deviations and frequencies, along with the Chi-Squared (elevated power of sample – 0.77) and Logistical Regression tests aimed at evaluating the relationship between perceived stress and the type of RSC. The results indicated that 92.8% of pregnant women with CFM presented with positive religious/spiritual coping (PRSC), with a mean value for perceived stress of 41.17 ± 9.03, there being an inverse relationship between perceived stress and PRSC (p = 0.02). Just five of the pregnant women presented with higher levels of stress and negative religious/spiritual coping (NRSC), without any correlation with demographic data (expectant mother’s age, religion, income, schooling, CFM prognosis or time since diagnosis). It was found that 81 (81.8%) of the pregnant women would like this topic to be addressed in the hospital setting, primarily by the doctors (56.6%) treating them

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