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The Effect of a Spirituality-Based Program on Stress, Anxiety, and Depression of Caregivers of Patients with Mental Disorders in Iran

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Abstract

One of the important issues regarding caring for patients with mental disorders is the high prevalence of stress, anxiety, and depression in their caregivers. This study aimed to investigate the effect of a spirituality-based program on stress, anxiety, and depression of caregivers of patients with mental disorders. This clinical-trial study involved 60 family caregivers of patients with mental disorders who were referred to the clinic of Shahid Ayatollah Modarres Psychiatric Hospital in Isfahan, Iran, during 2019–2020. Accordingly, the samples were selected using convenient sampling method and then divided into two groups of experimental and control by simple random allocation. Next, the spirituality-based intervention was performed for the intervention group, and the needed data were collected in both intervention and control groups before, immediately after, and one month after the intervention. The data collection tool used in this study was DASS-21 questionnaire. No significant differences were observed between the two groups in terms of the mean scores of stress, anxiety, and depression (p > 0.05) before the intervention. However, some significant differences were found in terms of the stress, anxiety, and depression scores between the two groups immediately (p < 0.001) and one month after the intervention (p < 0.001). The spirituality-based program seemed to affect stress, anxiety, and depression of caregivers of patients with mental disorders positively. So, it is suggested to perform this intervention as an inexpensive and available supportive method for family caregivers of patients with mental disorders.

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Acknowledgements

Hereby, the researchers show their gratitude to the research vice-chancellor of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences for the financial support, as well as to those who participated in this study.

Funding

The authors did not receive support from any organization for the submitted work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery, Nursing and Midwifery Care Research Center, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran

    Fateme Khosravi, Malek Fereidooni-Moghadam & Tayebe Mehrabi

  2. Department of Education, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran

    Seyed Roohollah Moosavizade

Authors
  1. Fateme Khosravi
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  2. Malek Fereidooni-Moghadam
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  3. Tayebe Mehrabi
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  4. Seyed Roohollah Moosavizade
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by FK, MF-M, TM and RM. The first draft of the manuscript was written by MF-M and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Malek Fereidooni-Moghadam.

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Human and Animal Rights

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. The study was approved by the Bioethics Committee of the Isfahan University of Medical Sciences 015, 2019 (No. 015, 2019).

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Khosravi, F., Fereidooni-Moghadam, M., Mehrabi, T. et al. The Effect of a Spirituality-Based Program on Stress, Anxiety, and Depression of Caregivers of Patients with Mental Disorders in Iran. J Relig Health 61, 93–108 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-021-01372-w

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