Does religious coping and spirituality have a moderating role on depression and anxiety in patients with spinal cord injury? A study from Iran.

Abstract

We evaluate the level of anxiety and depression among patients with spinal cord injury (SCI) in relation with their religious coping and spiritual health. Brain and Spinal Cord Injury Repair Research Center, Neuroscience Institute, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. A sample of patients with SCI participated in this cross-sectional study. They completed a sociodemographic questionnaire, the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, the Brief Religious Coping Questionnaire and the Spiritual Well-being Scale. Then, the association between anxiety, depression and independent variables was examined. In all, 213 patients with SCI were studied. Of these, 64 (30%) have had anxiety and 32 (15%) have had depression. Multiple logistic regression analyses revealed that gender (odds ratio (OR) for female=3.34, 95% confidence interval (CI)=1.31-8.51, P=0.011), employment (OR for unemployed=5.71, 95% CI=1.17-27.78, P=0.031), negative religious coping (OR=1.15, 95% CI=1.04-1.28, P=0.006) and existential spiritual well-being (OR=0.93, 95% CI=0.89-0.97, P=0.003) were significant contributing factors to anxiety (Table 3), whereas negative religious coping (OR=1.21, 95% CI=1.06-1.37, P=0.004) and existential spiritual well-being (OR=0.90, 95% CI=0.84-0.96, P=0.001) were significant contributing factors to depression. The findings indicated that depression and anxiety are two psychologically important side effects after SCI. The findings also indicated that religion and spiritual well-being have a moderating role on occurrence of depression and anxiety.