The Effect of Spiritual and Religious Group Psychotherapy on Suicidal Ideation in Depressed Patients: A Randomized Clinical Trial

Introduction: Suicide is a great economical, social and publichealth problem. It is prevalent worldwide and has a lot of negativeeffects on individuals, families and society. Depression is oftenprelude to Suicide. An important part of the treatment of the mentallyill patients is spiritual-religious psychotherapy which should be doneafter physical treatment. The aim of this study was to determine theeffect of spiritual and religious group psychotherapy on suicidalideation in depressed patients. Methods: 51 depressed patients withsuicidal ideation from Razi hospital (Tabriz, Iran) participated in thisclinical trial. To collect Data questionnaire was used which includeddemographic and Beck Suicide Scale Ideation. Experimental groupparticipated in 10 sessions of group psychotherapy. Each section lasted1 hour. Two weeks after the last section post test was done. Statisticalsoftware SPSS ver 13 was used for data analysis. Results: Results ofindependent t-test revealed no difference between two groups in terms ofsuicidal ideation before intervention but after study there is astatistical difference. Also the results of ANCOVA test showed asignificant relationship between spiritual group therapy and decrease insuicidal ideation, so that this intervention can make 57% of variance insuicidal ideation of experimental group. Conclusion: Regarding positiveeffect of spiritual and religious group psychotherapy on decreasingsuicidal ideation of depressed patients, we suggest this intervention tobe held in Psychiatric Wards and also more study on depression and otherpsychiatric patients with greater sample size would be helpful.