Religious coping among self-harm attempters brought to emergency setting in India

• Compared to healthy controls, those with self-harm less often used positive religious coping.
• Compared to healthy controls, those with self-harm more often used negative religious coping.
• Among patients with depressive disorders, both positive and negative religious coping correlated positively with depressive scores.
• Among patients with depressive disorders, both positive and negative religious coping correlated positively severity of suicidal ideations, anxiety and irritability.

This study attempted to evaluate religious coping and its correlates among patients presenting with self-harm to an emergency setting and compared it with a healthy control group. Religious coping was assessed using brief RCOPE. Beck Hopelessness Scale, Beck Depression Inventory, Barratt Impulsivity Scale, Scale for Suicidal Ideations and Irritability Depression Anxiety scale were used to assess for hopelessness, depression, impulsiveness, suicidal ideations and irritability respectively. The study included 32 subjects with depression and 77 subjects without any psychiatric diagnosis who presented with self-harm and 50 healthy controls. Compared to healthy controls, those with self-harm irrespective of presence or absence of psychiatric diagnosis less often used positive religious coping and more often used negative religious coping. Further, among those without psychiatric diagnosis (with self harm), there was positive correlation of negative religious coping with impulsivity and hopelessness. Among those without psychiatric diagnosis with self-harm, both positive and negative religious coping correlated positively with depressive scores, severity of suicidal ideations, anxiety and irritability, but associations were stronger for negative religious coping than that for positive religious coping. The findings of the present study suggest that those who indulge in self harm have lower use of positive religious coping and higher use of negative religious coping.