Investigating the Relation of Depression and Religious Coping and So-cial Support in Women with Breast Cancer

Some chronic diseases like cancer, and its side effects such as depression, are considered as stressful life events. But, these reactions are not the real results of the mentioned disease and depend on the pressure compensatory factors, like social support, and the performance of confront methods with stress, such as religious coping. The purpose of this research was to investigate the relation of depression, religious coping, and social support in the women with breast cancer. In our research, 240 patients with breast cancer were selected randomly (without considering of the disease stage) and were assisted with self report questionnaires (Beck depression test, religious coping, and social support). The correlation between religious coping and depression was significant and negative (-0.61; P < 0.01). Also, the correlation between depression and social support was significant and negative (-0.84; P < 0.01). But the correlation between social support and religious coping was significant and positive (0.62; P < 0.001). The results showed that as the score of religious coping and social support decrease, an increase in the depression score is observed and vice versa. Corresponding to the Beck depression test, 34.2% of the patients had moderate and severe depression. This research showed the effective role of social support and religious coping in decreasing depression score in the women with breast cancer which should be considered in therapeutic counseling services. Incidentally, the high rate of depression prevalence in these patients should be highlighted for the people in charged.