A Study on the Effectiveness of Spiritual Intervention on Perception of God and Attitude toward Death in Women with Breast Cancer

Abstract

Desperation, death threat, recurrence of disease, anxiety about the future, suffering from pain, personal, family and social problems arising from bad performance has made it necessary to pay attention to this important disease. Using spiritual intervention has an important role in reducing mental complications and promoting the patients’ health. This study was a quasi-experimental with pre-test and post-test, and control group. The statistical population included women with breast cancer referred to the Cancer Research Center of Shohada Hospital in 2015 that 24 people were selected by available method and were divided into two groups randoml. The experimental group was exposed to spiritual intervention and the control group was not exposed to any intervention. For measuring research variables, 72 items of God’s perception and 32 items of attitude toward death (DAPR) questionnaires were used and the covariance analysis was used for analyzing data. The results of the research showed that using spiritual intervention (P-0.05) in-group was effective significantly in improving perception of God and reducing the fear and avoidance of death in the women's group with breast cancer. Reminding this attachment, sense between the creator and creature creates a good relationship between patient and God. The death anxiety will reduce with the help of focusing on the kindness and forgiveness and attempts to the good acts in this universe and the reality of the human survival in another universe, which is a movement from the potential perfection to the active perfection.