Bereavement of Israeli Arab Muslim widows: Determinants of adjustment and supporting attributes

Abstract

Cultural-specific determinants of coping with widowhood were investigated by the Two-Track Model of Bereavement. Participants were 93 middle-aged and middle-class Israeli Arab Muslim widows. Factor analysis emitted 4 factors of adjusting to widowhood. The suffering and resilience factors and the total scale score were consistently correlated with personality attributes, whereas demographics were associated mainly with the suffering factor and the total scale score. The factors differed from the factors characteristic of Israeli Jewish bereaved, which emphasize the need to examine models of bereavement in cross-cultural perspective and to account for the interaction of cultural effects with psychological processes.