The Effect of Religious Beliefs and Spirituality Training on Family Health: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Abstract

Background: A religious belief and spirituality training of women can have a significant impact on various dimensions of individual and family health, including mental health and quality of life. The aim of this study was to review and summarize the results of trials conducted on the effect of religious beliefs on marital satisfaction spirituality training on mother’s health with ill children. Materials and Methods: In this systematic review and meta-analysis, at first, English databases such as Medline, Scopus, ISI Web of Science, Cochrane Library, EMBASE, and Persian databases such as SID and Magiran were systematically searched without any time limitation up to May, 2019.The search keywords including: spirituality, spiritual, children religious, religion, religiousness, religiosity, marital satisfaction, marital status and marital relationship were used in order to find related studies. Study selection was done by two reviews. Results: Totally 19 related articles were found. Meta-analysis of the combination of the results showed that religious education is the factor increasing the marital satisfaction among those who had received this education system in comparison with ones who had not. The value of effects obtained from the mentioned studies was 1.38 (95% CI: 1.11 to 1.66: heterogeneity; = 0%, p=0.634), which is statistically significant (p <0.001). Spirituality training on mothers of mothers or caregivers with ill children resulted in a significant improvement in distress level, depressive symptoms, social functioning and some of components of spiritual resiliency such as patience, contentment, reliance and thanksgiving. Conclusion: Religious belief teaching is effective on marital satisfaction. Spirituality training can significantly improve mental health of mothers with ill children.