Religious Coping and Depression

Literature Review: A systematic review was conducted that evaluated the impact of religious coping on levels of depression among adults. The findings of the review supported a dichotomous view of the impact of religious coping on depression, and suggested that individuals who make use of positive religious coping methods experience significantly different levels of depression than those who use negative religious coping methods. Future research is needed to examine long-term effects of using positive and negative religious coping, to better understand how religious coping is used in non-Christian communities around the world. Research Project: The current study investigated religious coping and depressive symptoms in the context of the Ismaili Muslim religious community in Nairobi, Kenya. Six participants were interviewed using semi-structured interviews and the data was analysed using Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Four super-ordinate themes and twelve sub-ordinate themes emerged from the interviews. Overall, the findings indicated that religion appears to have both positive and negative influences on depressive symptoms, a finding that is generally supported by the wider literature on religious coping. Clinical implications for practice, limitations and areas for future research are discussed in relation to these findings. Service Evaluation: The current study examined professional development within the context of the Community Counselling Services (CCS), local, community-based institution which provides voluntary counselling services for the Ismaili Muslim community. In the current study, counsellors’ perspectives of the professional development trainings and the extent that these trainings improve their therapeutic practice and skills were explored. The findings indicated that while the counsellors experienced a broader scope of knowledge and positive client outcomes and service delivery, the trainings were often too theoretically-orientated and lacked sufficient practical components. These findings, together with recommendations for improvement are reported with consideration of the existing literature.