Masoomeh Kheirkhah1, Elahe Almasi2, Jamileh Abolghasemi3, Ahmad Ashouri4
Introduction: Therapeutic abortion is an unpleasant issue that faces sufferers with various psychological stresses and causes conditions as despair, anxiety, depression, failure, disability, lack of confidence and loneliness. Social support and spiritual health are among the factors in fluencing the quality of life of individuals; therefore, the study of the relationship between social support and spiritual health with hopelessness in women with therapeutic abortion is important and this study was designed for this purpose.
Method: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 107 women who, with permission to abortion, were referred to Akbarabadi, Mahdieh, Imam Khomeini and Yas hospitals for abortion. In order to gather data, demographic questionnaire, Vaux Social Support Questionnaire, Paloutzian and Ellison Spiritual Health Scale and Beck hopelessness Questionnaire were used. These questionnaires were distributed among eligible participants and completed after completion of the abortion process. Data after being obtained were analyzed by SPSS 22 software and ANOVA statistical test, t-test and Pearson correlation coefficient.
Findings: Mean score of social support was 73.14 ± 1.073, mean score of spiritual health was 97.03 ± 1.884 and hoplessness was 4.64±0.513. The findings of the research showed that there was a significant relationship between social support and hopelessness in women with therapeutic abortion (r = -0.691, P < 0.001), spiritual health and hopelessness (r = -0.867, P <0.001), and social support and spiritual health (r = 0.789, p <0.001).
Conclusion: Social support and attention to the spiritual needs of women when confronted with abortion is associated with a decrease in their hopelessness. Therefore, recommendation to increase the support of the wife and the family and religious teachings and to pay attention to the religious needs in pregnancy can be effective on the reduction of post-abortion psychological complications.
