Coherence, Capability, and Care: Faith-Based Health Engagement and Well-Being in the Philippines

This qualitative study explored how Filipino adults from Roman Catholic, other Christian, Muslim, and Indigenous Filipino spiritual practice communities described faith-based health engagement in relation to perceived physical, mental, and emotional well-being. Informed by the Salutogenic Model and the Capability Approach, the study examined how participants understood religious and spiritual practices in everyday life, negotiated these practices alongside biomedical and traditional forms of care, and experienced family and faith-community support during health-related challenges. Forty Filipino adults participated in semi-structured interviews conducted in Filipino. Data were analyzed using a codebook-informed thematic approach guided by Braun and Clarke’s six-phase framework. Faith-based engagement was associated not only with emotional regulation and resilience but also with bodily endurance, morally valued conduct, relational support, and cultural or ecological grounding. Participants described faith-based and biomedical resources as related but non-interchangeable. Spiritual, communal, and traditional practices were valued for emotional stability, meaning, moral orientation, cultural continuity, and everyday coping, whereas biomedical services were regarded as necessary for persistent symptoms, injury, serious illness, and bodily risk. This context-dependent differentiation reflected a severity-sensitive logic of care. Coping, coherence, and valued functioning were also described as relationally supported through family assistance, faith-community involvement, practical care, shared interpretations of adversity, and access to medical services. The study contributes a culturally situated account of religion and health by showing how participants negotiated spiritual, communal, traditional, and biomedical resources within everyday Philippine life.