中華心理衛生協會

Purpose: Spiritual health is a vital component of holistic health. Numerous studies have demonstrated an association between spiritual health and the consequences of positive health promotion and negative health moderation. However, few studies have examined the assumptions underlying spiritual health enhancement. The purpose of this study is to analyze the literature on spiritual health-enhancement strategies and to propose a model for spiritual health promotion program design. Methods: The literature on spiritual health was reviewed and feasible spiritual health enhancement strategies were analyzed. Results: Through our review we found that we were able to apply the ”5 W's”, a schema common in the disciplines of epidemiology and public health, to the design spiritual health-promoting programs: (1) What: The content should focus on enhancing spiritual self-awareness and methods of spiritual health promotion. (2) Who: The mentor should have the ability to self-reflect, communicate, build relationships with, and inspire others. Using a series of questions with a supportive attitude enables the exploration of one's ultimate concern and the construction of life values. (3) For Whom: Individual demands of participants need to be considered according to their faith development stage. (4) When: The timing of stressful events can assist individuals in dealing with their stress through a meaningful process. (5) How: Spiritual health enhancement strategies should be applied with flexibility so that individuals are able to explore their own spirituality and learn more effective spiritual coping methods. We recommend that experimental interventions be evaluated with the spiritual health scale (because of its high reliability and validity) to assess their direct impact. We also found that variables such as psychosocial and physical health should be used as evaluation indices to evaluate intervention outcomes for health improvement; they can also be applied to examine the effect of experimental intervention. Conclusions: Health professionals should consider the ”5W's” when designing spiritual health promoting programs.