Spiritual struggle and affective symptoms among geriatric mood disordered patients

Abstract

Objectives: We explored relationships between general religiousness, positive religious coping, negative religious coping (spiritual struggle), and affective symptoms among geriatric mood disordered outpatients, in the northeastern USA.

Methods: We assessed for general religiousness (religious affiliation, belief in God, and private and public religious activity) and positive/negative religious coping, alongside interview and self-report measures of affective functioning in a diagnostically heterogeneous sample of n = 34 geriatric mood disordered outpatients (n = 16 bipolar and n = 18 major depressive) at a psychiatric hospital in eastern Massachusetts.

Results: Except for a modest correlation between private prayer and lower Geriatric Depression Scale scores, general religious factors (belief in God, public religious activity, and religious affiliation) as well as positive religious coping were unrelated to affective symptoms after correcting for multiple comparisons and controlling for significant covariates. However, a large effect of spiritual struggle was observed on greater symptom levels (up to 19.4% shared variance). Further, mean levels of spiritual struggle and its observed effects on symptoms were equivalent irrespective of religious affiliation, belief, and private and public religious activity.

Conclusions: Previously observed effects of general religiousness on (less) depression among geriatric mood disordered patients may be less pronounced in less religious areas of the USA. However, spiritual struggle appears to be a common and important risk factor for depressive symptoms, regardless of patients' general level of religiousness. Further research on spiritual struggle is warranted among geriatric mood disordered patients.

Keywords: depression; mania; negative religious coping; spirituality.

Figure 1. Affective Symptoms as a function of Spiritual Struggle

Note: Standardized scores of MADRS, GDS and YMRS are presented along the Y-axis; Percentile scores of Spiritual Struggle (Negative Religious Coping) scores are presented along the X-axis. As reported in text, bivariate relationships between Spiritual Struggle and all three symptom scales were significant controlling for general religious factors (religious affiliation, belief in God, and frequency of public/private religious activity).