Religious Coping Self- Efficacy As Facilitator: How Infertility Experience Moderates Reproductive Technology Acceptance In Ghana

Abstract

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.