Comparison of the Effectiveness of Mindfulness and Spiritual/Religious Coping Skills on Health Hardiness and Somatic Complaints of Elderly with Hypertension

Background and Objectives: Hypertension, especially in the elderly, is one of the important risk factors for cardiovascular diseases. Due to the impact of psychological factors on this disease,l and the need for non-pharmacological treatments, this research was conducted to compare the effectiveness of mindfulness and spiritual/religious coping skills on health hardiness and somatic complaints of elderly with hypertension. Methods: This semi-experimental study was conducted with a pre-test and post-test design. The study population consisted of  all elderly with hypertension in the Center for the Elderly in Behshahr in 2015. A total of 45 people were selected by convenience sampling and randomly assigned to three groups. The experimental groups were trained in 8 sessions of 70 minutes by mindfulness and spiritual/religious coping skills methods. Data were collected with questionnaires of health hardiness and somatic complaints and analyzed by multivariate analysis of covariance method. Results: The findings showed mindfulness and spiritual/religious coping skills methods led to significant increase in health hardiness and signoficant decrease i in somatic complaints of elderly with hypertension (P<0.001). Also, there was not any significant difference between the mindfulness and spiritual/religious coping skills methods in increase in health hardiness and decrease in somatic complaints of elderly with hypertension (P<0.05). Conclusion: The results showed that both treatments, especially spiritual/religious coping skills method, were effective on increase in health hardiness and decrease in somatic complaints of elderly with hypertension. Therefore, counselors and therapists can use these methods to increase health hardiness and decrease somatic complaints of elderly with hypertension.