The Effect of Implementing Spiritual Empowerment Program on the Spiritual Mentoring Competence of Soft Warfare Officers

The spiritual education of students, by professors in the position of mentors, requires spiritual empowerment and deepening of spirituality in the university environment. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of a spiritual empowerment program on the spiritual mentoring competence of soft war officers.

This randomized controlled clinical trial was performed in 2020 on 98 army commanders in Tehran. Commanders were selected based on inclusion criteria by available sampling method and divided into two groups of control and test by random group assignment. After obtaining informed written consent, completing the demographic form and occupational spiritual health questionnaire, the intervention was performed for the experimental group during the distance education program with a multimedia method based on the sound heart model with the aim of gaining trust, increasing knowledge about spiritual health, development of communication with God, self, people and the natural world, and motivation. The intervention was performed by donating educational software and following the training in the virtual network for 15 weeks. The control group did not receive any intervention. After four months (at the end of the intervention time), the questionnaire was completed again by both groups. Descriptive statistics (mean, standard deviation) and analytical statistical methods (Wilcoxon and Mann-Whitney tests, Chi-square test and Fisherchr('39')s exact test) were used to analyze the data.

There was no significant difference between the mean and standard deviation of the occupational spiritual health of the two groups before the intervention (254.54 82 ± 13.82 in the control group and 257.59 ± 11.0 in the intervention group). After the intervention, there was a statistically significant difference in terms of this index in the intervention group (P <0.001) by 106 units to 363.12 ± 68.51. The correlation coefficient (r) between occupational spiritual health and Allison spiritual health was 0.76 and the value was P <0.001.

Due to the necessity of deepening spirituality in military-training centers and the effect of the spiritual empowerment program on the competence of spiritual mentoring of commanders, the use of this educational software is recommended.