Comparison of the Effectiveness of Two Religious–Spiritual and Hope Interventions on Reducing Stress, Anxiety and Depression of Spouses of Veterans with PTSD

The present study aimed to compare the effects of religious-spiritual intervention and hope therapy on reducing stress, anxiety, and depression of spouses of veterans with  the post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Using the pretest-posttest design with a control group and follow-up, this quasi-experimental study was conducted among spouses of veterans who had referred to Sadr hospital in Tehran since 2003 to 2016. The participants were randomly assigned into two experimental groups and one control group (each group 17 persons). The data were collected using the Secondary Traumatic Stress Scale (STSS-17) and Depression, Anxiety, Stress Scale (DASS-21). The experimental groups 1 and 2 were trained three times a week in eight sessions. A week after termination of training sessions, posttest was administered for the two experimental groups and the control group. Three months after termination of training program, participants were tested again to follow up the training effects. To compare the effectiveness of the approaches, two-way multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) mixed design was used.

Both religious-spiritual and hope interventions significantly reduced stress, anxiety, and depression of spouses of veterans with PTSD compared to the control group and also the effects have been stable after a three-month follow-up (p<0.01). Whereas, there was no significant difference between the effectiveness of these two interventions on reducing stress, anxiety, and depression of spouses of veterans compared to the control group (p>0.05).

The two religious-spiritual and hope approaches are effective as interactive interventions on reducing stress, anxiety, and depression of spouses of veterans with PTSD, and there is no reference between them.