Spiritually Informed Cognitive Behaviuor Therapy for the Treatment of Depression in Patients with Cardiac Illnesses

Abstract

The aim of the current research is to see the efficacy of Spiritually Informed Cognitive Behaviour Therapy in reducing depression in patients with cardiac illnesses. For this, it was hypothesized that there will be a significant difference in the level of depression in patients with cardiac illness before and after the treatment of Spiritually Informed Cognitive Behaviour Therapy. Another hypothesis stated that there will be a significant difference in the level of depression of patients with cardiac illness in the experimental group (experiencing Spiritually Informed Cognitive Behaviour Therapy) as compared to the waitlist control group. It was also hypothesized that there will be a significant difference in the number of cognitive distortions of patients with cardiac illness in the experimental group as compared to the waitlist control group, and there will be a significant gender difference in the level of depression of patients with cardiac illness after receiving Spiritually Informed Cognitive Behaviour Therapy. Two focus groups (respectively 10 and 8 number of participants) were conducted. The purpose of conducting focus groups was to gain an indigenous insight into prevailing cognitive distortions among patients with cardiac illnesses. The results of the focus group after verbatim analysis showed 3 cognitive distortions in the cardiac patients with depression including all-or-nothing thinking, emotional reasoning and mislabeling. The second phase of the research included a pre-post research design, whereby 50 patients with cardiac illness were recruited as participants from a private cardiac hospital in Karachi, Pakistan. These patients with cardiac illnesses also having a moderate or severe level of depression were selected, and divided into experimental and waitlist control groups. Those who gave consent for the intervention were included in an experimental group and those, who were viii not willing for intervention or unable to continue to long therapy procedure due to any of their personal limitations were included in a waitlist control group (25 experimental and 25 waitlist control group). The participants belonged to the age group of 35 – 65 years with a mean age of 53.8 years (experimental group M= 54.84, SD= 7.38; waitlist control group M= 54.92, SD=7.33). Depression in Chronic Illnesses Scale (Yaseen, 2014) was used in pre and post-intervention stages to record the changes in the level of depression and to test the efficacy of the treatment utilized. Paired sample t-test indicated that the intervention is effective for reducing depression in patients with cardiac illness. The results showed verification of the first three hypotheses indicating a significant difference in the level of depression in patients with cardiac illness before and after the treatment of Spiritually Informed Cognitive Behaviour Therapy in the experimental group. The results also showed a significant reduction in the number of cognitive distortions of patients with cardiac illness in the experimental group as compared to the waitlist control group. Independent sample t-test showed no gender difference in the level of depression of patients with cardiac illness after receiving the therapy indicating the effectiveness of the intervention for both genders. Based on the results, it is recommended that in future researches more diverse populations from other religious faiths and cities could be used for analysing the significance of Spiritually Informed Cognitive Behaviour Therapy.