The ‘WORST PAPER OF 2022’ COMPETITION. Entry No 3: Effects of an Islamic-Based Intervention on Depression and Anxiety

The present study investigated the impact of a purposefully designed Islamic religion-based intervention on reducing depression and anxiety disorders among Muslim patients using a randomised controlled trial design. A total of 62 Muslim patients (30 women and 32 men) were divided by gender into two groups, with each group assigned randomly to either treatment or control groups. The participants who received the Islamic-based intervention were compared to participants who received the control intervention.

The Islamic-Based Intervention that was applied to the two experimental groups (i.e. one male, one female) has several components. These components were based on moral and religious concepts and methods, including moral confession, repentance, insight, learning, supplication, seeking Allah’s mercy, seeking forgiveness, remembrance of Allah, patience, trust in Allah, self-consciousness, piety, spiritual values, and moral principles. The techniques implemented in the intervention included the art of asking questions, clarifying, listening, interacting, summarising, persuading, feedback, empathy, training practice, reflecting feelings, discussion, and dialogue, lecturing, brainstorming, reinforcement, modeling, positive self-talk, evaluation, homework, practical applications, activation games (play through activities), emotional venting, stories, presentation, correction of thoughts, and relaxation. The two control groups (i.e. one male, one female) received the energy path program provided by the Al-Nour Centre. This program aimed to enhance self-confidence and modify people’s behavior with anxiety disorders, depression, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Both interventions comprised 30 sessions over 30 h; two sessions were conducted per week, and each session lasted for 60 min (one hour). The duration of the intervention was 15 weeks.

Taylor’s manifest anxiety scale and Steer and Beck’s depression scale were used for examining the effects on depression and anxiety levels. The results revealed that the Islamic intervention significantly reduced anxiety levels in women and depression levels in men compared to the typical care control groups.

The authors concluded that religious intervention played a vital role in lowering the patients’ level of anxiety among women and depression among men. In general, religious practices prevent individuals from becoming subject to mental disorders, i.e. anxiety and depression.

The authors comment that the Islamic religion-based intervention (RSAFI) significantly reduced the levels of depression and anxiety among the participants. Also, there was a substantial improvement in the patients’ general health after the intervention. They were satisfied and believed that everything happening to them was destined by Allah. These results could be attributed to the different intervention practices that relied on the guidance of the Holy Quran and Sunnah. For instance, Saged et al. (2020) confirmed that the Holy Quran significantly impacts healing patients who suffer from physical, psychological, and mental disorders. In this respect, Moodley et al. (2018) concluded that having faith in Allah offers a relatively quick approach to healing patients suffering from heartache and depression. This goes hand in hand because the recitation of the Quran and remembrance of Allah help patients feel relaxed and peaceful. Muslims believe that the Quran is the word of Allah and that Allah’s words exert a significant impact on the healing of mental health patients, as, ultimately, Almighty Allah is the one who cures illnesses.

When discussing the limitations of their study, the authors state that the sample of this study was limited to the patients with anxiety and depression disorders at the Al-Nour Centre in Kuala Lumpur, so the results cannot be generalized to other samples. Furthermore, the treatment of anxiety was restricted to females, whereas the treatment of depression was restricted to males. Additionally, the selection of females and males as samples for the study was based on their pre-measurement of anxiety and depression, which serve as self-report measures.

The authors seem to be unconcerned about the fact that the 2 interventions (verum and control) were clearly distinguishable and their patients thus were not blinded (and neither were the evaluators). This obviously means that the observed effect might have nothing at all to do with the Islamic-Based Intervention but could be entirely due to expectation and persuasion.

Why might the authors not even bother to discuss such an obvious possibility?

A look at their affiliations might provide the answer:

• ¹Academy of Islamic Studies, University of Malaya, 50603, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. [email protected].
• ²Academy of Islamic Studies, University of Malaya, 50603, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
• ³Faculty of Education, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor, Malaysia.
• ⁴Faculty of Education, University of Malaya, 50603, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
• ⁵Islamic Banking and Finance, International Islamic University Malaysia, Selangor, Malaysia.
• ⁶Department of Hadith and Associated Sciences, Nourah Bint Abdulrahman University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.