Importance of Spiritual Care for Cardiac Patients Admitted to Coronary Care Units in the Gaza Strip

Purpose: This study aimed to assess the perception of hospitalized cardiac patients in coronary care units (CCUs) in the Gaza Strip about the importance of assessing and providing spiritual care to them. Design: This was a cross-sectional study. Methods: A valid and reliable instrument previously developed by Musa was used to assess patients' perception about the importance of assessing spiritual needs and providing spiritual care to cardiac patients admitted to CCUs. Findings: Out of 279 cardiac patients, 275 (response rate of 98.6%) agreed to be involved in this study. Results revealed that both assessing spiritual needs (69.69%) and providing spiritual care (76.97%) were very important to cardiac patients with rating spiritual care intervention as more important than spiritual assessment. Conclusions: Assessing and providing spiritual care is crucial to cardiac patients. Therefore, health policy makers need to pay more attention to this group of vulnerable patients and need to adopt a spiritual care policy into the Palestinian health care system, which might help to decrease their stress, length of hospitalization, and the cost of treatment.