Self-esteem and self-confidence relationship with religious tendency in families with a child suffering from cancer

Background: Cancer and its diagnosis are one of the most difficult experiences of life during which the family face many spiritual crises and are looking for a definition for anguish and misery. Often the spiritual faith of the patient and their family is lost and their bond is impaired. Thus, the present study attempts to determine self-esteem and self-confidence relationship with religious tendency in families with a child suffering from. Methods: The present cross sectional study, which was a correlation type, was performed with cooperation of 50 parents of children suffering from cancer in 17th Shahrivar hospital in Rasht, in 2017. Gambler and Richie self-esteem, Eysenck self-confidence, and Allport’s religious tendency questionnaires were used to collect data. The data were then entered in SPSS version 21 software. For comparing the variables of self-esteem score, self-confidence, external and internal religious tendency, Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis tests were used. Findings: Mean and SD of self-confidence score, self-esteem and religious tendency were 97.9 ± 6.8, 82.6 ± 13.9, and 60.1 ± 6.8, respectively. Mean and SD of external and internal score of religious tendency was 48 ± 2.3, and 39 ± 11.3, respectively. Statistical tests showed that the religious tendency scores and the external and internal scores of religious tendency in terms of self-confidence (moderate self-confidence, high self-confidence) were not statistically significant (P > 0.05). Conclusion: According to the findings of this study, highly self-confident parents had a higher mean score than those with moderate self-esteem. Additionally, the external score of religious tendency was higher in single parents and in the first children than in other groups. Given that the present study was conducted for the first time in Iran, it is suggested that parents of cancerous children be supported by the hospital in terms of spirituality, self-confidence and self-esteem during throughout the time of their child admission.