the relationship between religious coping and depression in iranian patients with cancer

Background: the present study aims at investigating the relationship between religious coping behaviors and depression in iranian patients with cancer. methods: in this cross sectional study (october to december, 2015), 380 patients with cancer, admitted to the associated university’s medical sciences hospitals (sari, iran), were entered to the present study, using non-random sampling (accessible sampling). data were collected by demographic questionnaire, center for epidemiological studies depression scale (ces-d), and religious coping questionnaire (rcope). the statistical package for social sciences, version 20.0 (spss inc., chicago, il, usa) was used for data analysis by descriptive and infernal statistic tests (spearman’s correlation and generalized linear models). results: males (48.391339; ci95: 46.41 - 50.38) were older than females (45.3318.44; ci95: 42.79 - 47.87). the results of spearman correlation test suggested that there was a negative and significant correlation between positive religious coping and depression (r = 0.134, p = 0.009). in addition, there was a significant relationship between depression and level of education (p < 0.05), the economic status (p < 0.05), age (b = -0.078; p = 0.002), gender (b = 2.604; p < 0.001), marital status (b = 3.073; p = 0.001), and history of cigarette smoking (b = -2.176; p = 0.003) in patients with cancer. conclusions: considering the adverse effects of depression on the treatment process and secondary problems, more comprehensive studies should be conducted on the effects of religious coping on depression in order to take effective steps towards the intervention and health promotion of these patients.