Effect of multidimensional spiritual intervention on stress and heart rate variability after bypass surgery

Cardiovascular diseases have been identified as the leading cause of disability and death in the world. Many patients who do not respond to medical interventions experience heart surgery, which can be a major event in a person's life and can cause physical and mental dysfunction. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a multidimensional spiritual intervention on stress and heart rate variability (HRV) after bypass surgery in patients with coronary artery disease.

This quasi-experimental study was conducted with a control group and a pre-test-post-test design with one-month and three-month follow-ups. The statistical population of this study was patients who had coronary artery bypass graft surgery and were referred to the Rehabilitation Center of Tehran Heart Hospital. Totally, 30 patients were selected using the convenience sampling method and randomly divided into experimental and control groups. The instrument of this study was the evaluation of physiological psychological coordination of heart rate through heart monitoring and the “Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale” (DASS-21). The independent variable (multidimensional spiritual intervention) was run in the experimental group during 10 sessions of 90 minutes. The data were analyzed using repeated-measures ANOVA and SPSS.

There was a significant difference between the experimental and control groups in the mean scales of pre-test, post-test and follow-up, stress (F=251.191, p<0.001) and HRV (F=209.896, p<0.001). Moreover, the importance of the interaction in the HRV between the stages and experimental group indicated that the mean of the experimental group was significantly higher than that of the control group in the post-test stages and one-month and three-month follow-up, but it was less in the experimental group than in the control group in terms of other variables.

In fact, reducing negative emotions following stress inoculation training plays an important role in preventing the more serious complications of heart disease, and interventions based on the results of the present study are recommended for heart patients.