The Effect of Spiritual Counseling on Negative Life-events among Patients with Depression

By : Aleya Sanyal, Rekha Wagani, Santosh Meena

Page No: 309-319

Abstract:
Though very limited efforts have been made to explore the effectiveness of spiritual counseling on depression, many positive outcomes have been identified. Therefore, to further the field, the present paper with the help of previous literature proposes spiritual counseling as an extremely important tool which can results in decreasing symptoms of depression and leads to healthy individuals. The present study aims to investigate the effect of spiritual counseling on negative life-events among patients with depression and overall spiritual health. The study focused on ten patients (ages 18-45 years) recruited through the psychiatric outpatient department and randomly enrolled for a six-week spiritual counseling intervention. All the participants completed standardized questionnaires. Data were compared at three time points: at baseline, at 21-day follow-up and at 42-day follow-up. The structured scale for depression (SSD) and the structured spiritual health scale (SSHS) were used. The data were analyzed using the Friedman test. The spiritual counseling intervention reduced the level of depression. This standardized intervention program contributes positively to spiritual health. This kind of intervention can exert clinically relevant effects on important dimensions in patients with depression specifically those who had experienced negative life-events and contributes to spiritual health. However, large randomized controlled studies of high caliber with longer follow-up are required to confirm the same.

Authors :
Aleya Sanyal
Ph.D. Scholar (Psychology) – Banasthali Vidyapith, Niwai, Rajasthan.

Rekha Wagani
Assistant Professor – Amity Institute of Behavioural and Allied Sciences, Amity University, Maharashtra.

Santosh Meena
HOD and Associate Professor – Banasthali Vidyapith, Niwai, Rajasthan.
 

DOI: https://doi.org/10.32381/JPR.2022.17.02.4