Systematic review of various types of spiritual support and care to promote the health of the elderl

Abstract

Introduction: Considering the increase of hope for life and the increase of the elderly population, planning in the field of promoting the health and well-being of the elderly in various dimensions of health is important. The importance of maintaining and improving the health of the elderly and reducing the complications of aging, reducing the cost of care and treatment, attention to cheap, affordable and low-complication care methods seems necessary. The aim of this study was to investigate the types of support and spiritual care to promote the health of the elderly.

Methods: In this systematic review, Persian and English articles published up to 2019 using a combination of keywords using a combination of keywords old, adult older, elderly, spiritually, support, religious as well as key persian words sensitive to spirituality, religion, the elderly in databases: Ovid, Science Direct, SID, PubMed, Magiran. Extracting the required data using a pre-prepared checklist in which the required data were extracted from each study including the year and place of the study, authors, number of participants in the study, spiritual health findings in promoting elderly health. The quality of the articles was assessed using the Ottawa-Newcastle instrument. Results: A total of 2239 articles were selected in the initial search and entered into Endonote software. After reading the full text, finally 23 studies were entered for systematic review. By reviewing the published articles in the field of spiritual care in order to promote the spiritual health of the elderly, we can approach 1- Private (individual) spiritual care 2- Group spiritual self-care in a group method. 3- Spiritual care with a supportive approach. 4- Spiritual care program to support the patient's religious rituals. 5. Spiritual care program using support systems. 6- Spiritual education based on Islamic programs - Spiritual intervention - Religious education 7- Spiritual care based on a healthy heart model refers to the promotion of the health of the elderly. Regarding the relationship between spiritual care and the elderly at the end of life, spiritual care is rarely provided by physicians and nurses. Most patients with advanced cancer never receive any spiritual care from their nurses or oncologists. And in the field of various diseases with spiritual care, it can be said that the use of private prayer is a spiritual coping strategy among patients with heart disease, and death anxiety was reduced in the experimental group. Conclusions: The results of studies on spiritual care showed that spiritual care approaches in promoting the health of the elderly, spiritual care at the end of life of the elderly and based on the type of disease are different and it is necessary to achieve a comprehensive approach by standardizing care tools in studies. And end-of-life spiritual care is rarely provided by physicians or nurses. Private prayer is also a spiritual coping strategy among patients.

Keywords: Spiritual , Religious, Support, Elderly, Systematic review