Health, Spirituality and Medical Ethics
Volume:6 Issue: 2, Jun 2019

Quality of life is a key component of health, associated with the individual and social living conditions of a person. Religious or spiritual parameters are among the most important determinants of quality of life (QOL) and its outcomes, and they are more significant and effective when the university students are involved. Therefore, the present study was conducted to evaluate religious attitude and self-control among the students of University of Qom and Qom University of Medical Sciences in Qom, Iran. This study was also targeted toward evaluating the relationship between these variables and QOL in the same population.
This cross-sectional study was conducted on 298 students selected through multistage stratified random sampling technique. The participants’ religious attitude, self-control, and QOL were assessed based on the questionnaires of 40-point, 24-point, and 26-point scales, respectively. The data were analyzed through path analysis using the SPSS (version 20) and Mplus software.
Out of 298 participants, 160 (54%) respondents were the students of Qom University of Medical Sciences, and 178 (60.3%) students were female. According to the results, religious attitude showed a positive correlations with QOL and self-control. The results of path analysis revealed that religious attitude had an indirect effect on QOL through affecting self-control, in addition to a direct effect on QOL. The overall effect of religious attitude on QOL was estimated at 0.372, while the effect of self-control on QOL was reported as 0.449.
As the fidnigns indicated, the promotion of religious attitudes can improve self-control, thereby leading to the improvement of QOL.

The evaluation and accurate recognition of all the needs and problems of patients, including spiritual needs, are inevitable to increase the quality of nursing care. This study aimed to evaluate the spiritual needs and their association with anxiety and depression in the elderly with chronic diseases.
This cross-sectional analytical study was conducted on 100 patients with chronic diseases above 60 years of age. The subjects were selected through convenience sampling in the two hospitals of Qom, Iran, in 2017. Data collection tools were demographic characteristics questionnaire, as well as the questionnaire of spiritual needs and hospital anxiety and depression scale.
In this study, the mean age of the subjects was 65.4±5.2 years. All the patients were reported with at least a spiritual need. The highest score related to the item of "requesting help from God" was 2.31±0.76, whereas the lowest score related to the item of "talking with others about the life after death" was 0.66±0.98. The results of regression analysis demonstrated that among the variables entered into the univariate model, the two variables of depression and disease duration had a significant relation with spiritual needs.
Unmet spiritual needs were reported high in the elderly with chronic diseases, and depression, as well as disease duration, were the effective factors in the spiritual needs of the elderly with chronic diseases. Therefore, the spiritual needs of patients with chronic diseases should be considered in clinical care in order to identify potential therapeutic ways to support and stabilize their emotional state.

Abortion is one of the main causes of maternal mortality. The lack of knowledge of physicians and midwives about the abortion laws can lead to the deficiency of presenting accurate information to pregnant women, and consequently to increase unsafe abortions. The purpose of this study was to assess the relationship of knowledge and attitude towards legal abortion laws with the performance of midwives in Qazvin, Iran.
This descriptive-correlational study was conducted on 122 midwives with private offices in Qazvin, Iran, from May to September 2012. The subjects were chosen according to the convenience sampling method. After obtaining informed consent for participation in the study, four questionnaires, including demographic characteristics, knowledge, attitude, and performance questionnaires were distributed by the researcher among the referrals.
The obtained results showed that approximately half of the midwives had good knowledge about abortion laws (55.7%); however, their attitude towards abortion laws was mostly negative (86.9%). In addition, their performance of abortion was reported as average (60.7%). There was no significant relationship between the knowledge and midwifes’ performance; however, a significant statistical relationship was observed between their attitude and performance.
Regarding the fact that providing abortion services is one of the healthcare strategies for preventing the complications of unsafe abortion, it is advised to increase the knowledge level of medical personnel by including the relevant courses in the university, holding retraining courses and congresses on the issue of abortion, and informing new guidelines.

Mentally retarded children put mothers under physical, mental, and social pressures that severely decrease their quality of life. Meanwhile, spiritual skills training programs can lead to the empowerment of mothers in this regard. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of spiritual skills training on the quality of life in mothers of mentally retarded children.
This experimental study was conducted based on a pretest-posttest design with the control group. The data were collected using the World Health Organization's Quality of Life Questionnaire. In total, 20 mothers of mentally retarded children, who had met the inclusion criteria, were selected utilizing convenient random sampling. The participants were then assigned randomly into experimental (n=10) and control groups (n=10). The experimental group received the interventions through eight 90-min to 2-h sessions. The post-test was taken after the intervention.
According to the results, the mean±SD values of the quality of life before the intervention were 67.00±11.83 and 67.11±6.25 in the experimental and control groups, respectively, and there were no significant differences between the two groups. However, regarding the mean±SD values of the quality of life after the intervention, the experimental and control groups obtained 72.22±10.10 and 67.33±7.02, respectively, which was statistically significant (P<0.05, F=4.83).
According to the obtained results, spiritual skills training have a significant effect on the quality of life in mothers of mentally retarded children. Accordingly, this approach can be utilized as a useful tool to improve the quality of life in mothers of mentally retarded children.

Nowadays, the rate of cerebral stroke is increasing in Iran. Therefore, the identification of factors affecting the quality of life in patients with stroke helps researchers to have a more comprehensive understanding of its treatment. The aim of this study was to determine the relationship between religious orientation and quality of life in patients with stroke in Zanjan.
This descriptive-correlational study was conducted on 120 patients with stroke who were selected using convenient sampling. The data were collected through Allport religious orientation and World Health Organization Quality of Life questionnaires. Data analysis was performed using Pearson correlation and multiple regression.
According to the results of this study, extrinsic religious orientation correlated with total quality of life (r=0.555, P=0.01), as well as physical health (r=0.400, P=0.01), psychological (r=0.737, P=0.001), and environmental (r=0.463, P=0.01) domains. Moreover, the results revealed that intrinsic religious orientation correlated with total quality of life (r=-0.443, P=0.01), as well as physical health (r=-0.219, P=0.05), psychological (r=-0.522, P=0.01), social relationships (r=-0.252, P=0.047), and environmental (r=-0.631, p=0.045) domains. In addition, the results of the regression analysis indicated that extrinsic religious orientation showed no significant prediction in terms of social relationships; however, the predictions were significant regarding other domains. Furthermore, a significant association was observed between total quality of life, psychological and environmental domains with an intrinsic religious orientation.
Religious orientation can have an effect on the improvement of quality of life in patients with cerebral stroke.

Professionalism includes behaviors, actions, and goals that determine the professional level of an individual. The assessment of the professionalism of learners can help to estimate and determine educational needs and priorities, as well as further interventions. As future faculty members and experts, residents play an important role in the practical education of behavior and scientific commitment of medical students. Therefore, for the first time, this study aimed to evaluate the professionalism of residents from the perspective of interns.
This cross-sectional study was performed on 138 interns at Kashan University of Medical Sciences in 2017. The research tool was the Persian and edited version of the 15-item questionnaire designed by the American Board of Internal Medicine for the evaluation of professionalism. The mean and standard deviation were estimated related to total scores of professionalism and three domains of excellence, honor/integrity, as well as altruism/respect. Moreover, the relationship between reported scores and demographic characteristics was determined.
Out of 150 distributed questionnaires, 138 questionnaires were analyzed in this study. The total score and three domains of excellence, honor/integrity, and altruism/respect were estimated at 6.07±1.53, 4.24±1.87, 6.56±2.03, and 6.83±1.73, respectively.
In total, the professionalism of residents was moderate from the perspective of interns. Among the three assessed domains, the lowest and highest scores were related to the domains of excellence and altruism/respect, respectively. The low score of excellence reminded the absence of residents as role models. With respect to the hidden educational curriculum and its impact on the formation of professional behavior of students, it seems crucial to plan in this regard.

Love failure can cause intense emotional damage in a person. Therefore, it is necessary to identify and strengthen the factors that improve the experience of an individual with love failure. With this background in mind, the present study aimed to evaluate the effect of spiritual-religious psychotherapy on love trauma syndrome and acceptance of the problem in female students with love failure. This experimental pretest-posttest study was performed on 30 female undergraduate students with an experience of love failure in Bandar Abbas, Iran, in 2019, using a control group design. The study population was selected through snowball sampling method, and then assigned randomly into two groups of intervention and control. The participants of the intervention group received spiritual-religious psychotherapy, and the final analysis was performed on 27 subjects. Data collection tools entailed Love Trauma Inventory, in addition to Acceptance and Action Questionnaire-II. All data were analyzed by multivariate analysis of variance using SPSS software (version 22). The findings showed that spiritual-religious psychotherapy had a significant effect on love trauma syndrome (F=102.75, P<0.05) and love failure acceptance (F=161.79, P<0.05). According to the results of this study, spiritual-religious psychotherapy can be suggested as an effective approach in improving love trauma syndrome and love failure acceptance in girls. The findings of this study might have various practical implications.

Careers related to body products are targeted toward saving patients from certain death. Such careers serve a necessary and important role. In case of the incidence of any human fault and organizational failure within the irreparable course of body product manufacturing, the negligent person is liable to pay compensation according to the principle of Tasbeeb (causation). Althoughno negligence has occurred in almost all cases, in case of incidence, it is impossible to prove. Regarding this, the present study aimed to find a good solution to vindicate the rights of patients under such circumstances. The review study was conducted using the library recourse for data collection. If infectious products are transferred directly, the conductor does not need to have committed the fault to prove liability according to the principle of Itlaf (wasting). On the other hand, if causes involved in the transfer of products are found to have committed a the fault, their liability can be proved under the principle of Tasbeeb. When the causing agents involved in the transfer of products have not committed a the fault, or their fault is not proved, the principle of Ghorur (deception) will be a good solution that protects the deceived victims. Patients who trust a wide and complex organization and its equipment, which is solely responsible for the important task of transferring the body products, and refer to it with confidence, are actually deceived by its appearance, and this brings about the means of deception rule to be enforced.