The Path Analysis between Spiritual Well- Being and Religiosity Mediated by Mental Health and Grief Severity Fetal or Neonatal Deaths

Background:

 Recently there has been concern about grief following the loss of a child and the factors affecting its severity that have been less addressed in research. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between spiritual well-being, mental health and religiosity and grief severity in women who experienced the fetal or neonatal deaths.

A cross-sectional-analytical study was carried out on 200 women who experienced the perinatal deaths and referred to four hospitals affiliated to Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. The data were collected using demographic questionnaire, Spiritual well-being scale (SWBS), Perinatal grief scale (PGS), Muslim religiosity scale (MRS), and General healthy questionnaire (GHQ). The data were analyzed using SPSS software version 19. LISREL software version 8.8 was used to test the designed model.

There was a significant relationship between spiritual well-being level and the grief severity (p <0.001). Also, a significant relationship was observed between religiosity and mental health level and the grief severity (p <0.001). Religiosity has the most negative relationship (β=-0.838), and mental health has the most positive relationship (β=0.33) with the severity of fetal-neonatal grief. 

Conclusion

According to the results, spiritual well-being and religiosity can reduce the grief severity; therefore, it is recommended that the interventional studies should be performed to minimize this problem.