Losing faith and using faith: older African Americans discuss spirituality, religious activities, and depression.
OBJECTIVE
Older African Americans are often under diagnosed and under treated for depression. Given that older African Americans are more likely than whites to identify spirituality as important in depression care, we sought to understand how spirituality may play a role in the way they conceptualize and deal with depression in order to inform possible interventions aimed at improving the acceptability and effectiveness of depression treatment.


METHODS
Cross-sectional qualitative interview study of older African American primary care patients.


METHODS
Forty-seven older African American patients recruited from primary care practices in the Baltimore, MD area, interviewed in their homes.


METHODS
Semi-structured interviews lasting approximately 60 minutes. Interviews were transcribed and themes related to spirituality in the context of discussing depression were identified using a grounded-theory approach.


RESULTS
Participants in this study held a faith-based explanatory model of depression with a particular emphasis on the cause of depression and what to do about it. Specifically, participants described depression as being due to a "loss of faith" and faith and spiritual/religious activities were thought to be empowering in the way they can work together with medical treatments to provide the strength for healing to occur.


CONCLUSIONS
The older African Americans in this study described an intrinsically spiritual explanatory model of depression. Addressing spirituality in the clinical encounter may lead to improved detection of depression and treatments that are more congruent with patient's beliefs and values.
Wittink
Marsha N
MN
Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, University of Pennsylvania, 3400 Spruce Street, 2 Gates Building, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA. wittinkm@uphs.upenn.edu
Joo
Jin Hui
JH
Lewis
Lisa M
LM
Barg
Frances K
FK
D001741:Black or African American; D000368:Aged; D003863:Depression / Q000523:psychology* / Q000628:therapy; D029221:Faith Healing; D005260:Female; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D008297:Male; D010342:Patient Acceptance of Health Care / Q000523:psychology*; D011320:Primary Health Care; D012068:Religion and Medicine; D029181:Spirituality