The Relationship between Spiritual Health and Death Anxiety of Leukemia Patients

Leukemia patients are physically and mentally vulnerable. Considering that the spiritual health of these people is directly and indirectly affected in the process of follow-up and treatment of their disease, and they may face death anxiety due to the nature of the disease, the existence of basic research, comprehensive and in accordance with the culture ruling the society, is necessary to investigate the relationship between spiritual health and death anxiety of these patients.

In this descriptive-cross-sectional correlational research, 219 patients with leukemia in Shahid Beheshti Hospitals and Imam Khomeini Oncology Clinic in Hamedan city were selected by convenience sampling method and examined. Data collection tools were demographic information form, Paloutzian & Ellison's spiritual health questionnaire (1983), and Templer's death anxiety questionnaire (1970). The data were analyzed using SPSS version 25 software.

The results of study showed that 127 (58%) were men and 92 (42%) were women, and the mean age was 46.65 ± 15.45 years. A total of 215 patients (98.2%) had moderate spiritual health and 4 patients (1.8%) had high spiritual health. Also, it was found that there is no significant relationship between spiritual health and death anxiety (P>0.05).

Although the findings of this study showed that there is no significant relationship between death anxiety and the spiritual health of leukemia patients, it is necessary to conduct more and more practical research to find out all aspects of their relationship with each other and the factors that affect them. Also, this study determined that most of these patients have high death anxiety, and it is necessary to investigate its causes and to help reduce this anxiety by taking appropriate measures such as providing psychological counseling to these patients.