Spiritual Health and its Relationship with Religious Behaviors of Students in Yazd University of Medical Sciences

Spiritual well-being, as one of the basic concepts about how to deal with the problems and tensions caused by different conditions of life, is one of the dimensions of health that integrates its other dimensions. Therefore, considering the importance of this dimension of health in the lives of students, we aimed to investigate the status of spiritual well-being and its relationship with religious behaviors among students of Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences in Yazd in 2017.

This is a correlational and descriptive cross-sectional study conducted on 420 students in Yazd University of Medical Sciences. Random stratified sampling method was used to select the participants from each school. The sample size was determined based on the number of students. The data collection tool was a standard spiritual health questionnaire and religious behaviors. Data were analyzed by descriptive and quantitative distribution as well as Chi-square, ANOVA, and Pearson correlation tests using SPSS.

The participants' mean age was 20.93 ± 3.61 years. The results showed a significant relationship between religious behaviors and marital status (p <0.040). Spiritual well-being had a significant relationship with gender and mother's level of education (p <0.05). We found that 67% of students had moderate level of spiritual health. A positive and significant correlation was also observed between spiritual well-being and religious behaviors among students (p <0.001).

The results showed that the students were in good condition in terms of spiritual wellbeing, but their status was not desirable in terms of religious behaviors. Considering the correlation between spiritual health and religious behaviors in students, serious attention should be paid in designing  students' curriculum based on cultural issues.