Religiosity: Reducing Depressive Symptoms Amongst Muslim Females in the United Arab Emirates
Keywords:
Depression, religiosity, Muslim, Arab, Islam, positive clinical psychologyAbstract
Religiosity has previously been associated with greater wellbeing, as well as with lower rates of depressive disorders and less severe levels of depressive symptoms. Relatively few studies however, have explored this association in Muslim populations. The present study explores the relationship between religiosity and depressive symptoms amongst female citizens of the United Arab Emirates. Using a cross-sectional correlational design, a convenience sample of college students (N = 459) completed the Religious Conviction Inventory (RCI-10), adapted to the Islamic context, along with the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II). Both instruments demonstrated good psychometric properties and as hypothesized, religiosity was negatively correlated with depressive symptoms. Further, individuals categorized as experiencing severe depressive symptoms reported significantly lower levels of religiosity, compared to their asymptomatic counterparts. These findings lend further support to the idea that religiosity may act as a resilience-factor in the context of depression, extending this idea to female citizens of the United Arab Emirates. The findings of this study are understood in the context of the second wave of positive psychology, called PP 2.0, which looks at positive and negative factors in individual’s lives as both interact to produce positive clinical outcomes.
References
Abdel-Khalek, A. M., & Lester, D. (2009). Religiosity and death anxiety: No association in Kuwait. Psychological Reports, 104(3), 770-772.
Abou-Saleh, M. T., Ghubash, R., & Daradkeh, T. K. (2001). Al Ain Community Psychiatric Survey. I. Prevalence and socio-demographic correlates. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 36, 20-28.
Abu-Raiya, H., Pargament, K. I., & Krause, N. (2016). Religion as problem, religion as solution: Religious buffers of the links between religious/spiritual struggles and well-being/mental health. Quality Of Life Research: An International Journal of Quality of Life Aspects of Treatment, Care & Rehabilitation, 25(5), 1265-1274.
AlMarri, T. S. K., & Oei, T. P. S. (2008). Alcohol and substance use in the Arabian Gulf region: A review. International Journal of Psychology, 1(12), 1-12.
Al-Musawi, N. M. (2001). Psychometric properties of the Beck Depression Inventory–II with university students in Bahrain. Journal of Personality Assessment, 3(77), 568-579.
Beck, A. T., Steer, R. A., & Brown, G. (1996). BDI-II Manual. San Antonio: Harcourt Brace & Company.
Dew, R. E., Daniel, S. S., Armstrong, T. D., Goldston, D. B., Triplett, M. F., & Koenig, H. G. (2008). Religion/spirituality and adolescent psychiatric symptoms: A review. Child Psychiatry and Human Development, 39, 381-398.
Diener, E., Tay, L., & Myers, D. G. (2011). The religion paradox: If religion makes people happy, why are so many dropping out? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 101(6), 1278-1290.
Galek, K., Flannelly, K. J., Ellison, C. G., Silton, N. R., & Jankowski, K. B. (2015). Religion, meaning and purpose, and mental health. Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, 7(1), 1-12.
Ghandour, L. A., Karam, E. G., & Maalouf, W. E. (2009). Lifetime alcohol use, abuse and dependence among university students in Lebanon: Exploring the role of religiosity in different religious faiths. Addiction, 104, 940-948.
Gulamhussein, Q., & Eaton, N. R. (2015). Hijab, religiosity, and psychological wellbeing of Muslim women in the United States. Journal Of Muslim Mental Health, 9(2), 25-40.
Haeffel, G. J., & Grigorenko, E. L. (2007). Cognitive vulnerability to depression: Exploring risk and resilience. Child And Adolescent Psychiatric Clinics Of North America, 16(2), 435-448.
Hicks, J. A., Cicero, D. C., Trent, J., Burton, C. M., & King, L. A. (2010). Positive affect, intuition, and feelings of meaning. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98, 967–979.
Hodge, D. R. (2006). Spiritually modified cognitive therapy: A review of the literature. Social Work, 51(2), 157-166.
Hunsberger, B. (1980). A reexamination of the antecedents of apostasy. Review of Religious Research, 21, 158-170.
Keyes, C. L. M. (2005). Mental illness and/or mental health? Investigating axioms of the complete state model of health. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 73, 539–548.
King, M., Nazareth, I., Levy, G., Walker, C., Morris, R., Weich, S., & Bello'n-Saamen ̃o, J. A. (2008). Prevalence of common mental disorders in general practice attendees across Europe. British Journal of Psychiatry, 192, 362-7.
Larson, D. B., Sherrill, K. A., Lyons, J. S., Craigie, F. C., Thielman, S. B., Greenwold, M. A., & Larson, S. S. (1992). Associations between dimensions of religious commitment and mental health. American Journal of Psychiatry, 149, 557-559.
Maltby, J., Macaskill, A., & Gillett, R. (2007). The cognitive nature of forgiveness: Using cognitive strategies of primary appraisal and coping to describe the process of forgiving. Journal Of Clinical Psychology, 63(6), 555-566.
Miller, L., Wickramaratne, P., Gameroff, M. J., Sage, M., Tenke, C. E., & Weissman, M. M. (2012). Religiosity and major depression in adults at high risk: A ten-year prospective study. The American Journal of Psychiatry, 169(1), 89-94.
Moreira-Almeida, A., Neto, F. L., & Koenig, H. G. (2006). Religiousness and mental health: A review. Revista Brasileira de Psiquiatria, 28, 242-50.
Newberg, A. (2011). Transformation of brain structure and spiritual experience. In L. Miller (Ed.), Handbook of Psychology and Spirituality (pp. 161-178). New York: Oxford University Press.
Oishi, S., Diener, E., Lucas, R. E., & Suh, E. M. (2009). Cross-cultural variations in predictors of life satisfaction: Perspectives from needs and values. In E. Diener, E. Diener (Eds.), Social Indicators Research Series. Culture and well-being: The collected works of Ed Diener (vol. 38; pp. 109-127). New York, NY: Springer.
Osman, A., Kopper, B. A., Barrios, F., Gutierrez, P. M., & Bagge, C. L. (2004). Reliability and validity of the Beck Depression Inventory-II with adolescent psychiatric inpatients. Psychological Assessment, 16(2), 120-132.
Putnam, R. D. (2000). Bowling alone. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.
Seligman, M. E. P., & Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2000). Positive psychology: An introduction. American Psychologist, 55(1), 5-14.
Shiah, Y., Chang, F., Chiang, S., Lin, I., & Tam, W. C. (2015). Religion and health: Anxiety, religiosity, meaning of life and mental health. Journal of Religion and Health, 54(1), 35-45.
Shin, J. Y., & Steger, M. F. (2014). Promoting meaning and purpose in life. In A. C. Parks, S. M. Schueller, A. C. Parks, & S. 0. Schueller (Eds.), The Wiley Blackwell handbook of positive psychological interventions (pp. 90-110). Wiley-Blackwell.
Smith, T. B., Poll, J., & McCullough, M. E. (2003). Religiousness and depression: Evidence for a main effect and the moderating influence of stressful life events. Psychological Bulletin, 29(4), 614-636.
Sprinkle, S. D., Lurie, D., Insko, S. L., Atkinson, G., Jones, G. L., Logan, A. R., & Bissada, N. N. (2002). Criterion validity, severity cut scores, and test-retest reliability of the Beck Depression Inventory-II in a university counseling center sample. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 49(3), 381-385.
Thomas, J., & Altareb, B. (2012). Cognitive vulnerability to depression: An exploration of dysfunctional attitudes and response styles to dysphoric mood in UAE nationals. Psychology and Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice, 85(1), 117-121.
Thomas, J., & Ashraf, S. (2011). Exploring the Islamic tradition to inform and improve cognitive therapy for depression. Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 14(2), 183-190.
Wong, P. T. P. (2011). Positive psychology 2.0: Towards a balanced interactive model of the good life. Canadian Psychology, 52(2), 69-81.
Wood, A. M., Froh, J. J., & Geraghty, A. A. (2010). Gratitude and well-being: A review and theoretical integration. Clinical Psychology Review, 30(7), 890-905.
Wood, A. M., & Tarrier, N. (2010). Positive clinical psychology: A new vision and strategy for integrated research and practice. Clinical Psychology Review, 30(7), 819-829.
Worthington, E. L., McCullough, M. E., Berry, J. T., & Ripley, J. S. (2003). The Religious Commitment Inventory—10: Development, refinement, and validation of a brief scale for research and counseling. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 50(1), 84-96.
Zika, S., & Chamberlain, K. (1992). On the relation between meaning in life and psychological well-being. British Journal of Psychology, 83, 133–145.
