The Relationship between Spirituality and Physical Health: A Cross-Sectional Study on the Patients Referring to East Tehran Health Centers in 2019

Spirituality is a factor that can be the basis for a person's beliefs and mentality, and can affect one's health or illness by affecting the brain and nervous system, endocrine and immune systems. The present study was designed to investigate the spiritual health status and its relationship with physical health status of patients referring to comprehensive health centers in Tehran.

The research method was descriptive-analytical. The statistical population of the study consisted of the patients referring to health centers in East Tehran in 2019. 522 people filled in the Paloutzian Ellison Spiritual Health Questionnaire (20), which was used to collect data. Data were analyzed by Spearman correlation coefficient, Mann-Whitney test, Kruskal-Wallis test, and chi-square test. P<0.05 was considered statistically significant. In this study, all ethical considerations have been observed and no conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Spiritual health showed a significant difference with the number of common cold per year (P=0.019). There was a significant difference between religious health score and chronic illness of participants (P=0.028). Follow-up testing revealed a difference in scores between the cardiovascular disease and hyperlipidemia groups and other groups.

Spiritual health can lead to physical health, and people who are evaluated to be at a high spiritual level are less likely to develop diseases. It is also caused by the brain's endocrine and nervous system affecting the body's immune system. The basis of the human mind and thought is its belief system, beliefs and culture.