Spiritual Health in Cancer Patients and its Related Factors

Abstract

Background and Objectives: Having spiritual health is an effective factor in recovery of cancer patients. Therefore, due to the importance of spiritual health in outcome of cancer patients, this study aimed at assessing spiritual health and its related factors in cancer patients. Methods: This descriptive-correlational study was carried out on 150 cancer patients who were at least 18 years old and aware of their diagnosis in Shahid Ghazi Tabatabaei hospital affiliated to Tabriz University of Medical Sciences in 2009. These patients were selected by convenient sampling method. Ellison & Paloutzian questionnaire was used to assess patients’spiritual health and Patients’ demographic characteristics were assessed by a questionnaire constructed by the researcher. Data were then analyzed by descriptive and inferential statistics. To examine the relationship between demographical variablesand the related factors with spiritual health, one-way ANOVA, independent t-test and Pearson-test were used. Results: In this study, 100% of patients had moderate spiritual health. There was no statistical relationship between spiritual health and variables under study. Conclusion: The results of this study showed that many of cancer patients have a moderate spiritual health. This finding is normal taken Iranian culture into account. However, due to the shortage of research in this area, more studies are needed to fully verify the findings of this research.

Keywords

• neoplasms
• spiritual therapies
• related factors