The effect of group logotherapy on spirituality and preoperative anxiety in patients seeking open heart surgery referring to Tehran Heart Center in 2020

Background and purpose: Most patients experience anxiety before heart surgery. On the other hand, spiritual health can improve the candidate patient's adaptation to surgery. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the effect of group logotherapy on spirituality and anxiety of patients undergoing cardiac surgery.

Materials and methods: In this quasi-experimental study, 60 hospitalized candidates for cardiac surgery were randomly assigned to two groups (30 in the experimental group, 30 in the control group). To measure anxiety and relationship with God, Beck Anxiety Questionnaire and the researcher-made scale about relationship with God (reconstruction of Lawrence's scale of perception of God) were used, respectively. In the intervention group, in addition to drug therapy, individuals received two sessions of group discussion and spiritual skills training using the behavioral-cognitive method with emphasis on spiritual thoughts and problem-solving methods, but the control group received only drug therapy. Data were analyzed using SPSS software.

Results: In the experimental group, the anxiety scores mean in the posttest and follow-up were significantly lower than the pretest (P < 0.05), while the mean anxiety in the control group in the posttest stage was not significantly different, but at the follow-up stage, it was significantly lower than the pretest, but the decrease in mean anxiety in the experimental group was greater (P < 0.05). The mean subscales of relationship with god (influence, divine providence, acceptance, presence, challenge, benevolence) were significantly higher in the experimental and control groups in the follow-up stage than the pretest, but the increase in the mean of these variables was more in the experimental group in the follow-up stage (P < 0.05).

Conclusion: Findings showed that the components of relationship with God are a good predictor of pre-surgery anxiety, so by focusing on spiritual training of patients who are candidates for surgery, the incidence or severity of anxiety can be reduced.