Spirituality and Its Related Factors in Hemodialysis Patients

Background and Spiritual well-being is one of the essential aspects of health in coping with disease. Since one of the major bases of diseases is spiritual insecurity due to lack of spiritual dimension, this study aimed to investigate spiritual health and its related factors in hemodialysis patients.
This descriptive-analytical study was conducted on 81 hemodialysis patients referring to the Imam Khomeini Hospital of Sari, Iran, in 2015. Sampling was performed by stratified census method. The data was collected using a demographic form and Palotzian and Elison spiritual health questionnaire. To analyze the data, descriptive and analytical statistics, including mean and Pearson correlation coefficient, were used in SPSS 20.
The mean scores of spiritual, religious, and existential health were 70.93±16.79, 36.54±8.71, and 34.39±8.61, respectively. There was not a significant relationship between gender, number of family members, number of children, residence condition, hookah use, marital and economic status, and spiritual health of patients (P>0.05). However, a significant relationship was found between age, housing condition, and smoking status of the patients with their spiritual health (P The results of the present study showed that most of the patients had an average spiritual health and that their religious health was slightly higher than their existential health, which is normal in our culture. Lack of spiritual health, particularly in chronic disease patients, is a predisposing factor for many mental, social, and somatic problems. Therefore, spirituality and religious practices such as praying play crucial roles in accepting the disease.