Prayer in Hemodialysis patients and its related factors

Prayer is the most common practice in all religious systems. ‘‘Generally prayer, understood as a human communication with divine and spiritual entities. Prayer is a valuable coping strategy for adaptation of chronic illness. This study was conducted to assess the prayer (prayer activity, prayer experience and attitude toward prayer) and its related socio-demographic and clinical characteristic in hemodialysis patients.
It was a descriptive-correlational, cross-sectional study. 200 patients with renal failure on hemodialysis, being treated at educational center of Tehran University of medical sciences, participated in our study. The subjects were selected by census method. The collected data using the Adapted Prayer Scale (APS) was based on Poloma and Pendleton’s (1991) prayer scale and was analyzed by SPSS-14. The content validity was used and reliability of this instrument was demonstrated by a Cronbach’s alpha (r = 0.8)
Mean scores of prayer activity, prayer experience and attitude toward prayer were, respectively, (91.57±16.30), (46.32±7.13) and (32.64±7.58). Mean of total scores was (170.54±26.49). Significant relationships were observed between age, gender and educational level with prayer activity, prayer experience and attitude toward prayer (P≤0.05). Also the relationship between the length of Dialysis and attitude toward prayer was significant (P≤0.05). But significant relationships weren’t observed between prayer activity, prayer experience and prayer with the length of Dialysis.
Individual characteristics were related to prayer in hemodialysis patients. The findings support healthcare providers encouraging patient to explore their spirituality as an effective resource for coping with disease.