Self-Transcendence and Spiritual Well-Being among Stroke Patients

Objective: This paper aimed to identify self-transcendence and spiritual well-being among stroke patients and to determine the association between self-transcendence and spiritual well-being among stroke patients. Background: WHO estimated 86% mortality related to stroke world widely occurred in developing countries including, Pakistan. Living a meaningful life after the manifestations of stroke literally demands self-transcendence, which means the reconstruction of life or getting up again with more full potential. Materials and Methods: Analytical cross-sectional study of 210 stroke patients (three months and above inclusion eligibility criteria) were taken from the four rehabilitation centers of SGTH Swat, ATH Abbottabad, LRH and HMC, Peshawar, and responses recorded with validated and reliable questionnaires. Results: The participants’ mean score on the self-transcendence scale was 43.22, and on the spiritual index of well-being mean score were 40.83, respectively. Self-transcendence and spiritual well-being with other demographical variables found statistically significant (p < 0.05) on ANOVA and Post hoc test (Games-Howell). The positive strong correlations between the self-transcendence and spiritual well-being on Pearson correlation (r) were also found statistically significant (r = 0.619, p < 0.000). Conclusion: The results of this study support the theoretical assumptions of Reed’s theory in which during the vulnerability (stroke patients in this study) self-transcendence as an independent variable and protective factor have positive correlations with the outcome and dependant variable, called spiritual well-being. The findings also suggest implications for health care professionals to develop and deliver strategies to enhance vulnerable population self-transcendence for the outcome of spiritual well-being.  Keywords: Self-transcendence, Spiritual well-being, Stroke, Care.