Religious coping self‐efficacy as facilitator: How infertility experience moderates reproductive technology acceptance in Ghana
Naa Adjeley MensahAbstract
Objective
This study examines whether religious coping self‐efficacy accounts for the association between religiosity and assisted reproductive technology (ART) acceptance and whether personal infertility experience moderates this indirect association in a highly religious Ghanaian population.
Methods
A cross‐sectional survey of 938 adults in the Greater Accra region of Ghana used multi‐stage probability sampling. Generalized additive models tested a dual‐stage moderated mediation framework, with bootstrapped confidence intervals for indirect associations.
Results
Religiosity showed a negligible direct association with ART acceptance but a positive indirect association through religious coping self‐efficacy (ab = 0.031, 95% confidence interval: 0.015 to 0.050). The infertility experience showed compensatory moderation, where the religiosity‐to‐coping association was weaker among experienced respondents while the coping‐to‐acceptance association was stronger. Religious coping self‐efficacy was more closely associated with acceptance than belief intensity was.
Conclusion
Religiosity is related to ART acceptance mainly through religious coping self‐efficacy rather than directly. The findings reposition Pargament's religious coping theory as a contextually contingent model. Fertility services might benefit from assessing religious coping capability rather than belief intensity alone.