The Effect of Spiritual Care Program on Death Anxiety of Cardiac Patients: A Randomized Clinical Trial

Introduction: Cardiovascular disease is considered to be one of the most common chronic diseases in Iran and the World. Studies show that death anxiety is common among cardiac patients. There are several studies related to the effect of pharmacological and non-pharmacological methods in reducing the psychological outcomes in cardiac patients. Spiritual care program can be mentioned as one of the non-pharmacological and less known methods in present era. The present study aimed to identify the effect of spiritual care program on death anxiety of cardiac patients.  Methods:This study was a Randomized clinical Trial. 100 cardiac patients hospitalized in cardiac intensive care unit of Shahid Modarres Hospital in Tehran were chosen to attend this study using the available sampling method, from Dec 2015 to Apr 2016. The patients were randomly assigned to control group (receiving routine care) and intervention group (receiving spiritual care). The 15th item of Templer Death Anxiety Scale was completed for the patients by the researcher before and after the intervention. The spiritual care was done during 3 sequential days (from 17 till 21) for patients of intervention group according to the written program (supportive presence, ritual support and using supportive system) and patient’s desire and needs. Finally, the data was analyzed by descriptive and analytical statistics (independent t-test, chi square and ANOVA), using SPSS 23. Results: The results of present study showed that there was no significant difference between the distribution of variables in control and intervention group before the intervention. No significant change was observed in the rate of death anxiety of control group before (38.56±6.998) and after the intervention (38.96±5.838) (P=0.498) and either in intervention group before (39.96±5.715) and after the intervention (39.90±5.613) (P=0.898). Conclusion: The results of this study indicated that although the death anxiety of cardiac patients was reduced after the implementation of spiritual care, this reduction was not statistically significant.