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Numerous empirical studies have revealed inverse relationships between religious beliefs and practices and depression (see Koenig, King, & Carson, 2012).Ī number of theoretical and empirical articles emphasize the need to integrate religion/spirituality into treatment (see Hodge, 2006 Hook et al., 2010 McCullough, 1999 Pargament, 2007 Rose, Westefeld, & Ansely, 2001 Smith, Bartz, & Richards, 2007 Worthington, Hook, Davis, & McDaniel, 2011). Those with medical illness also frequently report turning to religion to find strength and comfort and derive meaning ( Koenig, Shelp, Goli, Cohen, & Blazer, 1989 Pargament, 1997). CBT may have disorder-specific effects, such that depression associated with some medical conditions (e.g., cancer) may respond better than depression associated with other medical conditions (e.g., HIV/AIDS van Straten et al., 2010). Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) generally indicate that CBT is an effective treatment for depression in the setting of medical comorbidity (e.g., Lustman, Griffith, Freedland, Kissel, & Clouse, 1998 Savard et al., 2006), although a systematic review of 23 RCTs concluded that the quality of many of these studies was questionable ( van Straten, Geraedts, Verdonck-de Leew, Andersson, & Cuijpers 2010).
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One of the most evidenced based forms of psychotherapy is cognitive–behavioral therapy (CBT Chambless & Ollendick, 2001).
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Two resources that are widely used by people suffering from mental and physical illness are psychotherapy and religion/spirituality. Response rates drop further in those with comorbid medical illness ( Simon, Von Korff, & Lin, 2005 Sinyor, Schaffer, & Levitt, 2010). Medications used to treat depression are effective for only about 60% of individuals (Gartlehner et al., 2007) and appear to be minimally effective for those with mild to moderate depression ( Fournier et al., 2010). Depression is associated with higher rates of morbidity, mortality, and medical costs, especially among those with a medical illness, whose risk of mortality is up to twice that of the general population ( Covinsky et al., 1999 Davydow et al., 2011 Hedayati et al., 2010 Katon, 2003 Sheeran, Byers, & Bruce, 2010). This treatment approach has been developed for 5 major world religions (Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism), increasing its potential to aid the depressed medically ill from a variety of religious backgrounds.ĭepression is a significant public health problem and is one of the major causes of disability worldwide ( World Health Organization, 2008). Finally, we describe Religiously Integrated Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (RCBT), a manualized therapeutic approach designed to assist depressed individuals to develop depression-reducing thoughts and behaviors informed by their own religious beliefs, practices, and resources. Next, we describe how religious beliefs and behaviors can be integrated into a CBT framework. First, we provide a brief overview of CBT. This article describes the development and implementation of the intervention. To address this gap, we developed and implemented a novel religiously integrated adaptation of cognitive–behavioral therapy (CBT) for the treatment of depression in individuals with chronic medical illness. spiritually) integrated psychotherapy, and no manualized mental health intervention had been developed for the medically ill with religious beliefs. However, few empirical studies have examined the effectiveness of religiously (vs. Intervention studies have found that psychotherapeutic interventions that explicitly integrate clients’ spiritual and religious beliefs in therapy are as effective, if not more so, in reducing depression than those that do not for religious clients.