Religious coping as a predictor of outcome in major depressive disorder

Background: There is a large body of empirical evidence that religious coping can alter individualfs psychological, social, physical, and spiritual adjustment of people to stress or adversity. Depression is a very important public health issue, and there is a need to find effective augmentation treatment modality along with antidepressant therapy. Most of the literature related to depression, religious coping come from the western world, and there is a paucity of such studies from the eastern part, especially Asian countries. Aim: To study the association of religious coping with severity and treatment outcome in major depressive disorder. Settings and Design: This is a cross-sectional hospital-based study. Subjects were recruited by random sampling. Materials and Methods: Sixty-six treatment naive patients with first episode depression or recurrent depressive disorders were recruited. Hamilton rating scale for depression (HAM.D) and religious coping scale administered on baseline visit and after 6 weeks of treatment. Statistical Analysis: Co-relational analysis is done between HAM.D score and religious coping scale. Results: Out of 66, 60 subjects were analyzed. Mean age of 35 years and M:F ratio is 43:17. Co-relational analysis of baseline HAM.D score with religious coping reveals that more positive and less negative religious coping is related to the lesser severity of depressive symptoms. After 6 weeks of treatment, more positive religious coping was observed in a group who responded to treatment than nonresponder to treatment. No significant difference of demographic variable found between responder and nonresponder group found. Conclusion: More positive religious coping was associated with less severe depressive symptoms and better treatment outcome in major depressive disorder