The Relationship between Daily Spiritual Experiences and Perceived Stress in the Spouses of War Veterans with Post-traumatic Stress

The wives of war veterans with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) are the indirect victims of the war which have experienced a lot of stress during their lives. Meanwhile, daily spiritual experiences can be considered as a defensive mechanism and a method for solving their problems in tensions and life problems. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the relationship between perceived stresses associated with daily spiritual experiences of the wives of war veterans with PTSD.
This descriptive correlational study was performed by simple random sampling on 187 wives of war veterans with PTSD in Kashan during 2015. The Daily Spiritual Experiences (DSES) and Perceived Stress Scales were used for data collection by self-report. Data were analyzed by SPSS 16.
The mean age of the patients was 47.6±3.3 years old. Daily spiritual experience was 31.5±6.9 and the perceived stress was 30.6±2.6. Spearman correlation coefficient showed a significant correlation between daily spiritual experiences with perceived stress levels (P=0.005, r= -0.2(. Actually, by increasing the amount of daily spiritual experiences, the perceived stress was reduced in veteran's wives.
Considering the Impact of daily spiritual experiences on stress reduction in veteran's spouses, the cultural context, religious and spiritual beliefs of the Iranian people can be used as a way of coping with stress and life crises. These methods have been used to adapt and improve the quality of life of veteran's wives.