Effect of Spiritual Care Program on Resilience in Patients with Heart Failure: A Randomized Controlled Clinical Trial

BACKGROUND: Heart Failure (HF) is a chronic disease that appears to affect resilience. One of the important programs that may affect resilience is a spiritual care program. As a result, the present study was conducted to determine the effect of a spiritual care program on the resilience of patients with HF. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This randomized clinical trial study was performed at Rajaie Cardiovascular Medical and Research Center in Tehran, Iran in 2020. Eighty-four patients were selected by convenience sampling method and randomly divided into two groups using a block size of 6. Connor-Davidson Scale and Parsian and Dunning Spirituality Questionnaire were completed by both groups before and after the intervention. For the experimental group, two educational sessions were carried out in one hour and thirty minutes and then continued three times a week for 1 month in order to practice spiritual care via WhatsApp. The control group did not receive the intervention that is done for the experimental group during performing intervention. In the end, the data related to 74 patients in each group (n = 37) were analyzed using Multivariate Analysis of Covariance (MANCOVA). RESULTS: Dimensions of individual competence (F = 12.85, p = 0.001) and negative emotion tolerance of resilience (F = 8.71, p = 0.005) increased significantly in the experimental group compared to the control group and caused a significant increase in the total resilience score of the patients (F = 7.78, p = 0.007). CONCLUSIONS: Results of the study showed that a spiritual care program has a great role in improving the total resilience score and can be considered as a part of the holistic treatment program.