Association between death anxiety and spiritual intelligence with the spiritual health and quality of life in hemodialysis patients

Background and Purpose: Fear of death is commonly experienced by humans and most people prefer not to think about their own mortality. Dialysis patients just as other chronic patients experience a great amount of stress. Use of coping mechanisms and promoting spirituality can help with accepting the inevitable reality and enhancing quality of life. Spiritual attitudes (spiritual intelligence and spiritual health) determine one's manner of dealing with life events, viewpoints, and perceptions of death. In this study, we sought to explore the relationship of spiritual health and intelligence with quality of life and death anxiety.

Methods: In this cross-sectional study, we studied death anxiety, spiritual intelligence, spiritual health, and quality of life in 123 Iranian hemodialysis patients at Imam Reza Hospital, Amol, Iran, during July 2015-January 2016. We also utilized Templer Death Anxiety Scale and King Spiritual Intelligence questionnaire and Paloutzian and Ellison's Spiritual Health questionnaire and McGill Quality of Life questionnaire (MG-QOL). The validity and reliability of the Persian version of the employed questionnaires were assessed by previous studies. The data was analyzed using Pearson correlation coefficient in SPSS, 19 version.

Results: Spiritual health was associated with death anxiety in hemodialysis patients. The linear regression analysis was conducted between the study variables and personal characteristics. There was a significant relationship between gender and death anxiety (P=0.03), economic status and death anxiety (P=0.02), religious beliefs and spiritual intelligence (P=0.01), level of education and quality of life (P=0.01), as well as age at diagnosis and spiritual health (P=0.01).

Conclusion: This study showed a close relationship between spiritual intelligence and death anxiety and between spiritual health and quality of life in hemodialysis patients. It seems that by enhancing spirituality, internalizing spiritual values and beliefs, and promoting health and spiritual intelligence, death anxiety can be assuaged in hemodialysis patients.