Relationships Among Cognitive Distortions, Forgiveness of Others, and Self-Forgiveness in Psychiatric Outpatients with Depressive Disorders: A Cross-Sectional Study.

Background

Depression is associated with cognitive, emotional, and interpersonal difficulties that may influence forgiveness-related processes. This study aimed to examine the relationships among cognitive distortions, forgiveness of others, and self-forgiveness in patients with depression.

Methods

This cross-sectional and correlational study was conducted with 252 voluntary psychiatric outpatients diagnosed with selected ICD-10 depressive disorders in a single outpatient clinic, excluding individuals with severe depressive episodes and psychotic features. Data were collected using the Descriptive Data Form, the Rye Forgiveness Scale (RFS), the State Self-Forgiveness Scale (SSFS), and the Cognitive Distortions Scale (CDS). Descriptive statistics, independent-samples t-tests, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), Pearson correlation analyses, and linear regression analyses were used for data analysis.

Results

A weak positive correlation was found between forgiveness of others and self-forgiveness (r = 0.206, p < 0.001), whereas a moderate negative correlation was identified between forgiveness of others and cognitive distortions (r = -0.486, p < 0.001). No statistically significant relationship was found between cognitive distortions and self-forgiveness (p > 0.05). Regression analysis showed that cognitive distortions significantly predicted forgiveness of others. Female participants had significantly higher self-forgiveness scores than males, and primary school graduates had higher cognitive distortion scores than high school and university graduates.

Conclusions

The findings suggest that cognitive distortions may be more strongly associated with forgiveness of others than with self-forgiveness in psychiatric outpatients with depressive disorders. Further longitudinal and intervention-based studies are needed to better clarify these relationships.