Relationship of religious activities with physical and mental health of nursing and midwifery students

Health has four physical, mental, social and spiritual dimensions of which spiritual dimension is the most important. Given that maintaining these four dimensions of nursing students as important components of mental health will be effective on their professional improvement in health care organizations. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between religious activities with physical and mental health of nursing and midwifery students of Kurdistan University of Medical Sciences in 2019.

The sample of this descriptive-analytical study was 184 nursing and midwifery students of Kurdistan University of Medical Sciences, and the research tool was a "Ware & Sherbourne Health Survey" questionnaire containing 36 closed-ended questions. Data were analyzed by SPSS 22 using Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, Pearson correlation coefficient, independent t-test and one-way ANOVA.

In the present study, there was no significant relationship between physical health with religious activity and its components (P>0.05). There was a significant relationship between mental health and religious activity and its components (P=0.000). No significant relationship was found between religious activity and its components, physical health and mental health with gender, educational level, history of mental disorder, marital status and age, but they had a significant relationship with students' semester.

Considering the "average" level of mental health of students as well as the direct and significant relationship between mental health with religious activity and its components, it is necessary to plan for the promotion of spirituality among nursing and midwifery students.