Antecedents of Spiritual Health Affecting Family Management and Sexual Relationships of Couples: A Conventional Content Analysis

Abstract

Background: Spiritual Health (SH) is the most meaningful and universal part of health affecting all human dimensions functions. Given that community health depends on the health of the family environment, Islam pays special attention to the basic foundation of the family and its persistence. Therefore, this qualitative study aimed to determine the antecedents of SH in Muslim couples according to Islamic sources. Methods: To collect the required data, some keywords, including “spiritual health”, “spirituality”, “spouses”, “couples”, and “Islam” were searched both in Persian and Arabic in Google Scholar, Noormags, SID, and Magiran databases in 1980-2023. After examining 37 documents, the conventional content analysis method was adopted to determine the antecedents of SH. Results: The 139 extracted codes were then classified into six categories (affecting the family management and their sexual, spiritual, behavioral, emotional, and cognitive relations). This paper elaborates on the antecedents of SH “affecting the family management”, and “sexual relationships” of couples. The first category includes four subcategories, “family boundaries and management”, “mutual and exclusive rights”, “planning”, and “cooperation and division of labor”. The second includes five subcategories, “encouragement to marry with trust in God”, “having offspring”, “preparation and contextualization”, “request and response”, and “infidelity prevention”. Conclusion: Both categories of “affecting the family management” and “sexual relationships” affect the lives of Muslim couples as antecedents and consequences of the concept of SH. It is suggested to perform more research by considering the texts of Sunni scholars.