Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2008 Nov;3(6):1620-7.
doi: 10.2215/CJN.01790408. Epub 2008 Oct 15.

Spirituality, social support, and survival in hemodialysis patients

Joann Spinale  1 , Scott D Cohen, Prashant Khetpal, Rolf A Peterson, Brenna Clougherty, Christina M Puchalski, Samir S Patel, Paul L Kimmel
Affiliations

Spirituality, social support, and survival in hemodialysis patients

Joann Spinale et al. Clin J Am Soc Nephrol. 2008 Nov.

Abstract

Background and objectives: No studies have evaluated the relationship among spirituality, social support, and survival in patients with ESRD. This study assessed whether spirituality was an independent predictor of survival in dialysis patients with ESRD after controlling for age, diabetes, albumin, and social support.

Design, setting, participants, & measurements: A total of 166 patients who had ESRD and were treated with hemodialysis completed questionnaires on psychosocial variables, quality of life, and religious and spiritual beliefs. The religious variables were categorized into three scores on a 0 to 20 scale (low to high levels): Spirituality, religious involvement, and religion as coping. Social support was assessed using the Multidimensional Scale for Perceived Social Support. Analyses were also performed including and excluding patients with HIV infection. Religious variables were categorized on the basis of means, medians, and tertiles.

Results: In analyses that used religious variables, only the responses on the spirituality scale split at the mean were associated with survival. The association of other religious variables with survival did not reach significance. Social support correlated with spirituality, religion as coping, and religious involvement measures. Only social support and age were associated with survival when controlling for diabetes, albumin concentration, HIV infection, and spirituality.

Conclusions: These data suggest that the effects of spirituality may be mediated by social support. Larger, multicenter, prospective studies that use well-validated tools to measure religiosity and spirituality are needed to determine whether there is an independent association of spirituality variables with survival in patients with ESRD.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Kaplan-Meier analysis of patients with ESRD and with high versus low spirituality. Gray line represents high spirituality (above the mean), and black line represents low spirituality.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Kaplan-Meier analysis of patients with ESRD and with high versus low social support. Gray line represents high social support, and black line represents low (below the mean) social support.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Levin JS: How religion influences morbidity and health: Reflections on natural history, salutogenesis, and host resistance. Soc Sci Med 43: 849–864, 1996 - PubMed
    1. Koenig HG: Is Religion Good for your Health? New York, Haworth Press, 1997
    1. Ellison CG: Religious involvement and subjective well-being. J Health Soc Behav 32: 80–99, 1991 - PubMed
    1. Martin WT: Religiosity and United States suicide rates, 1972–1978. J Clin Psychol 40: 1166–1169, 1984 - PubMed
    1. Cornstock GW, Partridge KB: Church attendance and health. J Chronic Dis 24: 665–672, 1972 - PubMed

Publication types

MeSH terms