Iranian Journal of Rehabilitation Research in Nursing

Introduction: Increasing rate of geriatric population and importance of maintaining and promoting their health in order to decrease complications and cost of care and treatment requires a focus on low cost and simple procedures with low complications. This study aimed to investigate impact of spiritual care on spiritual health of elderly residents at Kahrizak nursing home.

Methods: In this semi-experimental study with pre and posttests, 90 elderly residents of Kahrizak nursing home, which fulfilled the inclusion criteria participated in two groups; one case group and one control group, the samples of which were divided by randomized permuted block. The case group received 90 days of hope facilitation and active listening intervention. Data was gathered using a demographic test, Jarel spiritual well-being. The SPSS version 20 software was applied for analysis of data.

Results: Pretest average score of spiritual health reported in the case group was 33.50, and in the control group was 31.47, which showed no statistical differences (P = 0.074). After the intervention, in the intervention groups, the mean score increased to 7.12 for spiritual health that is statistically significant (P < 0.001), however in the control group, the mean score fell to 1.11 for spiritual health that was not statistically significant (P = 0.321). Co-variance analysis showed significant increase in spiritual health after the intervention (P < 0.001). Pretest average scores of mental health reported for the first case group was 41.37.

Conclusions: Results showed that spiritual care increased spiritual health of elderly residents of Kahrizak nursing home. Therefore, it is suggested for geriatric health care providers to use this safe and simple procedure to promote elderly spiritual health.