Resilience and self-compassion among persons with depressive disorders: Prerequisite for a positive mental health approach

V Hubert Dan; Lingam Ponnuchamy; Nitin K Anand; Binukumar Bhaskarapillai; Manoj K Sharma

doi:10.4103/jfmpc.jfmpc_2270_22

Resilience and self-compassion among persons with depressive disorders: Prerequisite for a positive mental health approach

J Family Med Prim Care. 2023 Aug;12(8):1621-1628. doi: 10.4103/jfmpc.jfmpc_2270_22. Epub 2023 Aug 29.

Authors

V Hubert Dan¹, Lingam Ponnuchamy¹, Nitin K Anand², Binukumar Bhaskarapillai³, Manoj K Sharma²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychiatric Social Work, National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS), Bengaluru, Karnataka, India.
² Department of Clinical Psychology, National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS), Bengaluru, Karnataka, India.
³ Department of Biostatistics, National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS), Bengaluru, Karnataka, India.

Abstract

Background: Treatment gap for common mental health problems, especially of the depressive disorders is consequential in developing countries like India. Positive mental health domains like resilience and self-compassion have been long hailed as protective factors against depression and viable for use in therapeutic aspects. The objectives were to find an association between resilience, self-compassion, and depression.

Methods: The study was conducted using a cross-sectional design among 75 respondents who were seeking treatment for major depressive disorders from a tertiary care center during the second wave of COVID-19. Three scales were administered online, namely Beck's Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II), Connor Davidson Resilience Scale (CD RISC-25), and Self-Compassion Scale-Short Form (SCS-SF). Spearman's rank correlation test, Chi-square with Fisher's exact test, and Kruskal Wallis H test were used to study the relationships and differences in average scores with respect to the severity of depression.

Results: Most of the respondents had moderate depressive features along with moderately high levels of resilience (CD RISC 25) and self-compassion (SCS-SF) scores. Resilience and self-compassion were found to have no significant relationship with respect to the severity of depression. There was a weakly positive correlation between resilience and self-compassion among those with moderate and severe depression.

Conclusion: Since the individuals with depression had higher scores on resilience and self-compassion, the levels of depression remained at moderate levels of severity despite the devastating impact of the second wave of COVID-19 in the Indian sub-continent. Results are to be interpreted with respect to psychosocial contexts arising during the COVID-19 pandemic. Mental health programs can incorporate the variables of resilience and self-compassion in intervention among individuals with depression which have likely been beneficial in their process of recovery.

Keywords: Depressive disorders; positive psychology; protective factors; resilience; self-compassion.