Religious Coping and Cognitive Symptoms of Depression in Elderly Medical Patients

The investigators examined associations between depressive symptom type and religious coping in 832 consecutively admitted older medical inpatients. Cognitive symptoms of depression, but not somatic symptoms, were related to religious coping. Boredom, loss of interest, social withdrawal, feeling downhearted and blue, restlessness, feeling like a failure, feeling hopeless, or feeling that other people were better off were all significantly less common among religious copers. Difficulty initiating new activities was the only somatic symptom related to this coping behavior. Religious coping, a strategy heavily dependent on cognitive processes, is associated with fewer cognitive but not somatic symptoms of depression in medically ill older patients