Effect of Spiritual Group Therapy on Anxiety and Quality of Life among Gestational Diabetic Females

Background and Gestational diabetes (GD) is one of the most prevalent diseases in women during pregnancy that is initiated and diagnosed during the pregnancy. Given the importance of early diagnose and timely treatment of this disease, the present study was conducted to investigate the effect of spiritual group therapy (SGT) on anxiety and quality of life among the women with Gestational diabetes.
This quasi-experimental study was conducted on 40 women with GD referring to the healthcare center of Varamin, Tehran, Iran, in 2015 using a pretest-posttest design. The study population was selected through available sampling method and randomly assigned into two groups of 20 cases. The experimental group was subjected to eight 80-minute sessions of SGT. The two study groups filled out the World Health Organization’s quality of life and the Cattell’s anxiety questionnaires. The data were analyzed by multivariate analysis of covariance method using SPSS version 19.
According to the results, there was a significant difference between the experimental and control groups in terms of the anxiety and quality of life (P As the findings of the present study indicated, the SGT method had a significant role in the reduction of anxiety and improvement of the quality of life. Therefore, the counselors and therapists are suggested to use the SGT method to decrease anxiety and increase quality of life.