The Relationship between Spiritual Health and Spiritual Intelligence of Midwives and Midwifery Students and Satisfaction of Clients with Vaginal Childbirth

Background: Maternity is one of the most important events in women's lives, and satisfaction with it has a significant impact on the health of women and their relationship with their neonates. On the other hand, characteristics of midwives such as health and spiritual intelligence can affect the satisfaction of women.

Objective: This study aimed to determine the correlation between spiritual health and intelligence of the staff and midwifery students and the satisfaction of the patients with vaginal childbirth.

Methods and Materials: This descriptive-correlational study was carried out on 200 subjects including midwives and patients with vaginal childbirth. Stratified sampling was used as the sampling technique. Research instruments were a demographic questionnaire, Ellison’s and Paluotzian Spiritual Health Questionnaire, and King Spiritual Intelligence Questionnaire for the personnel and midwifery students, Mackey Childbirth Satisfaction Rating Scale, and a demographic questionnaire for patients. The data were analyzed using SPSS software version 24, Pearson correlation and linear regression. A P value less than of 0.05 was considered significant.

Results: In this study, half of mothers were younger than 26 years of age and most of them were nulliparous with wanted pregnancy. Furthermore, half of personnel and students had moderate spiritual intelligence and about half had moderate spiritual health. The satisfaction of the patients had a positive correlation with spiritual health and spiritual intelligence. The lowest score was related to the flexibility component and the highest score was related to the component of stress tolerance.

Conclusion: Since the health and spiritual intelligence correlate with the satisfaction of patients with vaginal childbirth, it is suggested that spiritual characteristics be taken into account as a part of the selection process for midwifery students and staff.