Spiritual coping, religiosity and quality of life: a study on Muslim patients undergoing haemodialysis.

AIM: The number of haemodialysis patients globally is increasing and spiritual resources may help overcome adjustment problems among such patients. This study examined the relationships between spiritual/religious, demographic and clinical variables and quality of life among Iranian Muslims undergoing haemodialysis.

METHODS: Using a cross-sectional design, 362 haemodialysis patients were surveyed from three general hospitals located in Tehran, Iran. Spiritual coping strategies, Duke University Religion Index, EQ-5D 3L and a demographic questionnaire were administered. Hierarchical regression was used to identify predictors of quality of life and health status.

RESULTS: The distribution of reported problems across dimensions of quality of life was: mobility (59.4%), usual activities (30.4%), self-care (21.3%), pain/discomfort (47.8%) and anxiety/depression (29.3%). Univariate analysis showed that factors such as age, sex, marital status, location, number of children, body mass index, serum albumin, having diabetes mellitus or other comorbidity, as well as spiritual/religious factors that were related to quality of life, health status or both. Regression models revealed that demographics, clinical variables and especially spiritual/religious factors explained about 40% of variance of quality of life and nearly 25% of the variance in health status.

CONCLUSION: Spiritual resources may contribute to better quality of life and health status among haemodialysis patients. Further longitudinal studies are needed to determine whether these associations are causal and the direction of effect.