No abstract

Introduction: Today, issues related to meaning and spirituality are accepted as essential parts of chronic diseases’ experience as they may seriously affect people's attitude towards their ego, illness and future. The present study was conducted to investigate the spiritual health of the patients with gastrointestinal cancers and its association with general health. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 128 patients with gastrointestinal cancer ≤54 years with knowledge of their disease type at Imam Reza Hospital and Shahid Madani Hospital in Tabriz, Iran. Samples were selected using the simple sampling method. The spiritual status of the patients was evaluated using the Paloutzian & Ellison (1982) questionnaire & General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-28) and the checklist designed by the researchers, containing demographic characteristics. Data analysis, including the descriptive analytic statistics, independent t-test, correlation coefficient and Pearson correlation coefficient and regression model were done using SPSS V16 software. Results: Regarding Pearson correlation coefficient, there was a significant association between general health and spiritual well-being (p=0.003, r=0.71). Also, there was a direct and significant association between spiritual health in the religious section (p=0.01, r=0.51) and spiritual well-being in the existential (p=0.001, r=0.68) with general health. Conclusion: Based on the results of this study, it could be concluded that most cancer patients have high spiritual health, this makes the patient more adaptable to their illness.

The objective of this study was to develop and evaluate a scale for assessing irrational thoughts among burned patients. The present study was mixed (qualitative-methodologic) which was performed in several stages such as investigating similar or related scales, interviewing with patients and psychologists. Content validity was calculated by modified KAPPA basis on relevance and clarity. The reliability of the scale was measured using internal consistency and the test-retest method. To determine the construct validity, exploratory factor analysis approach using maximum likelihood extraction with varimax rotation was conducted. A total of 329 burned patients were recruited from Tehran, Tabriz, and Kermanshah provinces of Iran. Modified kappa scores were 0.80 and 0.91 for relevance and clarity of the items included in scale. The Cronbach alpha for overall scale, subscale 1, and subscale 2 were 0.89, 0.88, and 0.8, respectively. Test-retest reliability was also acceptable (intraclass correlation coefficient = 0.80). The best solution from the maximum likelihood analysis of the 39 items of the scale revealed two factors corresponding to the two subscales with 14 items that subscale 1 (self-acceptance) consisted of 10 statements accounting for 60% of the variance (eigenvalue = 5.04) and subscale 2 (distastefulness and pity) consisted of four statements accounting for 40% of the variance (eigenvalue = 1.53). The scale reflects acceptable levels of validity and reliability in assessing the irrational thoughts among Iranian patients. Moreover, the testing populations of both patients with burned faces and patients with other burned body parts indicates that the scale may also be applicable for patients' burn disfigurements on any part of their bodies.