The Relationship between Spiritual Intelligence, Spiritual Well-Being and Death Anxiety among Iranian's Veterans

Several factors can affect an individual’s level of death anxiety, but very few studies have investigated the role of spiritual intelligence and spiritual well-being. There is also limited research investigating death anxiety in the veterans of wars. Therefore, the purpose of the present study was to determine the relationship between spiritual intelligence, spiritual well-being and death anxiety in Iranian veterans.
In this descriptive cross sectional study (in 2014), veterans completed the King’s spiritual intelligence scale, Paloutzian and Ellison's spiritual well-being scale and Templar’s death anxiety scale-extended. The data were analyzed using multiple linear regression and two way analysis of variance by SPSS-16.
The findings showed that the average age of 211 veterans was 48.9 ± 4.6 years. The results revealed no significant difference between the demographic variables and the level of death anxiety reported by veterans (p> 0.05). However, spiritual intelligence and spiritual well-being had a significant and negative relationship with death anxiety. The higher the reported spiritual intelligence and spiritual well-being, the lower the death anxiety (p The findings from this study show that spiritual intelligence and spiritual health can reduce the level of death anxiety among veterans. Given that death anxiety is a common nursing diagnosis, the use of spirituality should be considered within a clinical context to harness the psychological health and coping strategies of veterans.