Spirituality and religiosity in patients with systemic arterial hypertension

Abstract

Systemic arterial hypertension is a major risk factor for complications such as acute myocardial infarction, cerebrovascular accident, and chronic kidney disease, which results in an important public health problem in Brazil, generating high medical and socioeconomic costs due to such complications. Systemic arterial hypertension associated with aspects such as spirituality and religiosity has been the subject of several studies. Thus, a descriptive, exploratory, cross-sectional study was conducted in order to assess the spirituality and religiosity of 65 hypertensive patients of a Service Center for Chronic Diseases. The domains “forgiveness” and “self-assessment” received better scores, with an average of 1.42 and 1.46, respectively. Whereas the “organizational religiosity” domain resulted in a higher average among respondents (3.00). Spirituality and religiosity of hypertensive patients are important dimensions that must be considered in developing a holistic treatment plan.