Spirituality is an important part of practice of the healthcare providers. Spiritual therapy is important for patients with chronic and end-stage diseases such as end-stage renal disease due to changes in physical, mental, social and spiritual needs. Promotion of spiritual well-being, self-esteem and self-efficacy is very important for these patients. The aim of this study was to determine the effectiveness of spiritual therapy on spiritual well-being, self-esteem and self-efficacy in patients on hemodialysis. The quasi-experimental research design was pre-posttest with the control group. The statistical population was the patients on hemodialysis in Governmental Hospital of Shahid Mostafa in Ilam, Iran, in 2015. Twenty-four patients were entered to the study by convenience sampling. They were divided into experimental and control groups randomly. Twelve 60-min sessions of spiritual therapy were held for the experimental group twice a week. The tools included spiritual well-being scale of Paloutzian and Ellison, Self Esteem Inventory of Cooper Smith and Self-Efficacy Scale of Sherer. Data were analyzed by SPSS software through descriptive and inferential statistics (analysis of covariance). p Values < 0.05 were considered significant. Results indicated that the scores in the experimental group changed in spiritual health from 39.32 ± 3.38 to 43.40 ± 2.82, in self-esteem from 42.65 ± 2.61 to 45.90 ± 3.88 and in self-efficacy from 40.99 ± 2.19 to 44.65 ± 2.58 which was significant compared with the control group (p = 0.01). Spiritual therapy can be used as an effective intervention to improve spiritual well-being, self-esteem and self-efficacy in patients on hemodialysis. This intervention is directed to holistic care. It can be done by interdisciplinary participation in caring and psychological teams.
Keywords: Clinical psychology; End-stage renal disease; Health care; Quasi-experimental.