📄 medicine

A cross-sectional study on spiritual health and its associated factors among medical university students in Iran

This cross-sectional study of 480 medical students in Iran found that spiritual health, measured by the Paloutzian and Ellison scale, is significantly associated with gender and marital status, with a mean score of 67.21 ± 10.96.

Original authors: Davood Bakhashayi, abbas ghods, hamidreza khodabandeloo, sayed bashir hoseini, Kazem Hosseinzadeh

Published 2026-08-11

📖 4 min read☕ Coffee break read

CC BY 4.0

Original authors: Davood Bakhashayi, abbas ghods, hamidreza khodabandeloo, sayed bashir hoseini, Kazem Hosseinzadeh

Original paper licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). ✨ This is an AI-generated explanation of the paper below. It is not written or endorsed by the authors. For technical accuracy, refer to the original paper. Read full disclaimer

Imagine your health isn't just a single light switch that's either "on" (healthy) or "off" (sick). Instead, think of it like a complex, multi-colored LED lamp with several different bulbs inside. One bulb is your physical body, another is your mind, and a third is your social life. But there's a fourth, often overlooked bulb: your spiritual health. This isn't necessarily about religion or going to a specific place of worship; it's more like an internal compass or a deep, steady battery pack that helps you keep going when life gets tough, like a stormy day or a heavy heart. Scientists and doctors are increasingly curious about this "spiritual battery" because when it runs low, people might feel more anxious, lonely, or sad. Understanding how this battery works in different groups of people helps us figure out how to keep everyone's lights shining bright.

This study zooms in on a very specific group of people: medical students in Iran. These are the future doctors, currently navigating the high-pressure world of university life. The researchers wanted to check the charge level of these students' spiritual batteries and see what factors might be plugging them in or draining them. They surveyed 480 students at Qazvin University of Medical Sciences, asking them to fill out a questionnaire called the Paloutzian and Ellison scale. Think of this scale as a detailed report card for the soul, with 20 questions that measure how you think, feel, and act regarding your inner life. The students rated their answers on a scale from "strongly agree" to "strongly disagree," resulting in a total score between 20 and 100.

When the researchers crunched the numbers, they found that the average spiritual health score for these students was 67.21 ± 10.96. This suggests a "moderate" level of spiritual health overall. If you broke down the score into its three parts, the students were doing best in the "cognitive" area (their thoughts and beliefs, averaging 27.11), followed by "emotions" (averaging 24.42), and finally "actions" (averaging 15.68).

But the real story wasn't just about the average score; it was about who had a higher or lower charge. The study looked at many different factors, like whether the students lived in a dorm or with family, what their parents did for a living, how much money they had, and which faculty they studied in (like Nursing, Medicine, or Dentistry). Surprisingly, none of these factors made a statistically significant difference. Whether a student's father was a government worker or unemployed, or whether the student was single or living in a dorm, their spiritual health scores remained pretty much the same.

However, two factors did stand out as having a real connection to the spiritual health scores. First, gender played a role: female students had significantly higher spiritual health scores than male students (a p-value of 0.007). Second, marital status mattered: students who were married had better spiritual health scores than those who were single (a p-value of 0.02). The researchers suggest that women might naturally lean more on faith or have different personality traits that boost this inner battery, while married students might benefit from the support system of a partner to help them handle daily stress.

The authors are careful to note that while they found these links, they didn't prove that being female or being married causes better spiritual health; they just found that these two groups tended to have higher scores in this specific group of students. They also pointed out that other studies have found different things, like parents' education levels affecting spiritual health, but this study didn't see that connection. Because this was a "cross-sectional" study (a snapshot in time), the researchers can't say for sure what will happen next. They recommend that future studies should try to run experiments or interventions to see if they can actively boost these spiritual health scores, rather than just observing them. For now, the takeaway is that for these medical students, being female or being married seems to be associated with a slightly fuller spiritual battery, while everything else from income to family type didn't seem to change the charge level.

Technical Summary: Spiritual Health and Associated Factors Among Medical University Students in Iran

Problem Statement
The study addresses the necessity of assessing the multidimensional aspects of human health, specifically spiritual health, to facilitate effective health promotion and prevention programming. While the World Health Organization defines health as a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being, spiritual health is posited as a critical adaptive agent that helps individuals cope with disappointment and loss. The authors note that a lack of adequate spiritual health is linked to depression, anxiety, loss of life satisfaction, loneliness, and sleep disorders. Despite this, there is a need to better understand the spiritual health status of university students, particularly medical students, who possess specific sociodemographic characteristics and play a pivotal role in the future structure of community health. The study aims to assess the level of spiritual health among medical students at Qazvin University of Medical Sciences in Iran and identify associated sociodemographic factors.

Methodology

Study Design: A cross-sectional analytical study conducted between October 2021 and June 2022.
Setting and Participants: The study was conducted at Qazvin University of Medical Sciences, involving students from four faculties: Nursing, Health, Medicine, and Dentistry.
Sampling: A convenience sampling method was used to recruit 480 medical students. Inclusion criteria required participants to have been in the faculty for at least one year and to provide informed consent.
Data Collection: Data were gathered via a two-part questionnaire:
1. Demographic Section: Captured variables including gender, marital status, residency, income, faculty, family type, and parental education/occupation.
2. Spiritual Health Scale: The Paloutzian and Ellison scale, consisting of 20 items across three subscales: cognition, emotions, and action. Items were rated on a 5-point Likert scale (Strongly Agree to Strongly Disagree), yielding a total score range of 20 to 100. The scale's reliability in this study was confirmed with a Cronbach's alpha of 0.79.
Data Analysis: Data were analyzed using SPSS version 23. Descriptive statistics were used for demographic and score distributions. The Chi-square test was applied to determine relationships between spiritual health levels (categorized as Low, Moderate, High) and sociodemographic variables. A significance level of $p \leq 0.05$ was established.

Key Results

Demographics: The mean age of participants was $24.18 \pm 5.20$ years. The sample was nearly evenly split by gender (50.6% female, 49.3% male). Most participants were single (67.9%), lived in university dormitories (71.8%), and came from nuclear families (82.2%).
Spiritual Health Scores: The mean total spiritual health score was $67.21 \pm 10.96$ , indicating a moderate level overall. The cognitive dimension scored highest ( $27.11 \pm 2.23$ ), followed by emotions ( $24.42 \pm 4.41$ ) and action ( $15.68 \pm 4.32$ ).
Associated Factors: Statistical analysis revealed that only two sociodemographic variables were significantly associated with spiritual health scores:
- Gender ( $p=0.007$ ): Female students demonstrated significantly higher spiritual health scores compared to males.
- Marital Status ( $p=0.02$ ): Married students reported significantly higher spiritual health scores compared to single students.
Non-Significant Factors: No statistically significant associations were found between spiritual health and residency status, income level, faculty of study, family type, or parental education and occupation.

Significance and Claims
The authors claim that this study provides a clear depiction of the spiritual health status of medical students in the Qazvin region, a finding that can assist governmental managers and health policymakers in understanding this demographic. The study confirms that medical students generally possess a moderate level of spiritual health, with cognitive aspects being the strongest domain.

The primary contribution of the paper is the identification of gender and marital status as significant predictors of spiritual health in this specific population. The authors suggest that the higher scores in females may be attributed to personality characteristics and greater faith-dependence, while higher scores in married individuals may result from family support systems aiding adaptation to daily stress.

The paper concludes that while these two factors are influential, other variables such as parental education and family type did not show significant associations in this context, contrasting with some previous literature. The authors modestly recommend that additional interventional studies are necessary to further explore this field and to develop specific programs to maintain and enhance the spiritual health of medical students. They explicitly state that their findings are based on a convenience sample and call for further research to validate these results.

Technical Summary: Spiritual Health and Associated Factors Among Medical University Students in Iran

More like this