Spiritual needs and their correlation with characteristics of people living with hiv/aids: A cross-sectional study

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Spirituality is an essential factor for HIV/AIDS patients. Spirituality helps a person to achieve balance, improves health, well-being, and adapt to illness. There are several factors related to the spiritual needs of people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA). One of them is the characteristic of PLWHA. AIM: This study aimed to analyze the relationship between spiritual needs with characteristic PLWHA. METHODS: A cross-sectional study design that included 103 PLWHA was conducted from July 2020 to August 2020 in HIV Service Clinic, Garut Regency, Indonesia. We used Spiritual Needs Questionnaire 2.1 (SpNQ 2.1) to collect the data. Chi-square was used for variable analysis. RESULTS: The dimension of religious needs has the highest score mean = 13.51, SD = 5.434, and existence needs have the lowest score with mean = 10.49, SD = 4.752 compared to other dimensions. The Chi-square test results showed that there was a significant relationship between gender (p = 0.012) and length of diagnosis (p = 0.019) on the spiritual needs of PLWHA. CONCLUSION: Spiritual needs have a significant relationship with the characteristics of PLWHA. All dimensions of spiritual needs become essential for people with HIV/AIDS.