Spiritual Intervention for Persons With Depression

City University of Hong Kong

Status: Completed

Conditions: Depression

Treatments: Behavioral: Christianity approach as framework for spiritual intervention

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT04631900

judyll2222

Details and patient eligibility

About

Mental health is an integral part of health and depression has become a common and serious mental disorder. The research study aims to explore the effectiveness of spiritual intervention in persons with depression.

Full description

This study aims to develop a community-oriented spiritual intervention programme that focuses on connectedness and to explore its effectiveness in persons with depression.

Objectives:

1. To evaluate the effect of this spiritual intervention on reducing depressive symptoms.
2. To evaluate the effect of spiritual intervention on enhancing hope, meaning in life, self-esteem, and social support.
3. To examine the moderatioon effect of demographic variables on the intervention effect in reducing the depressive and anxiety symptoms, and ennhancing hope, meaning in life, self-esteem, and social support.
4. To examine participant's perspectives on the healing mechanisms of the intervention.

The study is conducted as a randomized-controlled trial using a wait-list control group for comparison. The wait-list control group will receive the intervention after the completion of the post-questionnaire.

The intervention is an 8 session weekly programme. Each weekly session is around 2 hours in length and the content is as below:

1. Spirituality, mental health and depression
2. Connectedness
3. Forgiving and freedom
4. Suffering and transcendence
5. Hope
6. Gratitude
7. Relapse prevention and spiritual growth
8. Wrap-up and celebration

Enrollment: 57 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 64 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Hong Kong Chinese residents who can communicate in Cantonese;
• Religious or non-religious but have no objection to Christian faith rituals;
• Screening by PHQ-9 with score of 5-14 out of 27; and
• Willing to give informed consent and comply with the trial protocol.

Exclusion criteria

• Receiving any form of psychotherapy in the past 3 months;
• Significant cognitive impairment that is difficult to follow instructions;
• Lifetime history of psychosis that make the person unable to understand and follow instructions;
• Strong suicidal risk as rated by PHQ-9 item on suicide (score equal or more than 2), those with severe depression and strong suicidal ideas will be referred to seek professional help; and
• Adjustment of medication (antidepressant) within the past 3 months.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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57 participants in 2 patient groups

Spiritual Intervention Programme

Experimental group

Description:

The intervention is a 8 weeks' programme. The Christianity approach as the framework for spiritual intervention includes use of Bible verses, prayer, hymns singing, sharing and caring for others (mutual support) within the group. Through these activities, participants have opportunities to re-build and further develop their connectedness to themselves, to others, to their living, their environment, and to larger meaning and purpose.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Christianity approach as framework for spiritual intervention

Wait-list Control group

No Intervention group

Description:

Participants recruited in the waitlist control will be initially tested to generate pre-test scores and will then tested six weeks later which is equivalent to the timespan between the pre-test and post-test for the experimental spiritual programme. In between these two testing sessions, the waitlist control group will not receive any type of spiritual intervention. For ethical reasons, following the second testing session, the participants in the waitlist group will be given the opportunity to participant in the spiritual intervention programme.