The Effect of Spiritual Self-Care Training on the Caregiving Burden of Veterans' Spouses of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

Spouses of veterans indirectly suffer from the effects of war due to stress. They endure significant psychological pressures throughout their lives, highlighting the importance of spiritual self-protection in coping with life's challenges.

To examine how spirituality education affects the caregiving burden of spouses of veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder.

This classical experimental study involved 30 participants, randomly assigned to intervention (15) and control (15) groups, conducted in 2023 among the wives of stress veterans after a wartime incident in Torbat Heydarieh city. The intervention group received six training sessions based on Mary White's self-care model, while the control group received standard counseling care. Data was collected through a self-reported care questionnaire and analyzed using SPSS 21, employing paired t-tests, independent t-tests, and ANOVA, with a significance level set at 0.05.

The covariance test, after accounting for the pre-test effect, revealed a significant difference )P=0.007, Eta=0.24(, indicating that 24% of the reduction in care burden can be attributed to spiritual self-care.
Discussion and

The results indicate that spiritual self-care can alleviate the care burden on veterans' wives. This effective, low-cost approach enhances the quality of care for spouses of veterans while reducing their overall burden.