Spiritual well-being and quality of life in patients with spinal cord injury: A study from Iran.

Objective To assess the relationship between spiritual well-being and health-related quality of life (QOL) among patients with spinal cord injury (SCI). Setting Brain and SCI Research Center, Neuroscience Institute, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. Methods This was a cross-sectional study. A sample of patients with SCI participated in the study and completed two questionnaires: the Short-Form 36-Item Health Survey (SF-36) in order to collect data on vitality, social functioning, mental health and role emotional and the Spiritual Well-Being Scale (SWBS) to measure religious and existential well-being. The association between spiritual well-being and health-related QOL was then assessed. Results In all 213 patients were studied. The mean age of patients was 43.5 (SD = 10.8) years, and most were male (77.5%). The results obtained from generalized linear regression analysis indicated that religious well-being and existential well-being were significant contributing factors to improved vitality, social functioning, mental health and role emotional. Conclusion The findings suggest that having higher levels of spiritual well-being might improve quality of life in people with spinal cord injury.