Effectiveness of Religious-Spiritual Group Therapy on Spiritual Health and Quality of Life in Methadone-treated Patients: A Randomized Clinical Trial

Background: Spirituality is one of the most important factors that can contribute to the recovery of substanceuse disorder (SUD). The objective of this study is to evaluate the efficacy of the religious-spiritual grouptherapy on the spiritual health and the quality of life in methadone-treated patients.Methods: This study was carried out in Qom City, Iran, in 2018. 72 methadone-treated patients wererandomly selected and assigned in two groups: the experimental group (which received religious-spiritualtherapy) and control group (which received no treatment). At the beginning of the study (pre-test), eightweeks after the start of the study (post-test), and three months after the start of the study (follow-up test), allparticipants completed the World Health Organization Quality of Life-BREF (WHOQOL-BREF)questionnaire and the Spiritual Well-Being Scale (SWBS). Participants in the experimental group received 8sessions (90 minutes for each session) of spiritual and religious training, while the control group received noreligious-spiritual intervention; it just was trained with general information on addiction. Data were analyzedusing SPSS software and descriptive and inferential statistics methods.Findings: The results of repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed that there was nosignificant difference between the intervention and control groups in the pretest, but religious-spiritualtraining significantly increased spiritual health and the patients' quality of life (P < 0.001).Conclusion: Religious-spiritual education can improve the quality of life and spiritual well-being inmethadone-treated patients. The findings suggest that religious -spiritual education can be considered as aninexpensive, accessible, useful, and effective treatment for SUD treatment