An overview of Spiritual health in cancer patients

Abstract

Introduction: Spirituality is one of the important dimensions of human. Spiritual crises can have an adverse effect on physical and mental health. Diseases cause spiritual distress in patients. This is important in patients with chronic illness, such as cancer. The purpose of this study is to provide an overview of the spiritual health of cancer patients. Methods: This descriptive-prospective study was conducted on 1442 patients with cancer in the pathology department of Qazvin Hospitals from 2011 to 2015 by census method. The tool used in research was Ellison's Pallutinin Spiritual Health Questionnaire. Descriptive statistics and Pearson test were used to determine the correlation between variables P < 0.05. Results: The average age patients was 56 ± 66.74 (age range 26 to 81). 850 (58%) patients were male. The results showed that spiritual health level of 21% of patients were at intermediate level, 55 percent on average, and 23 percent were at a high level. Religious health scores of the patients were higher than that of health existence. Between demographic variables and spiritual health (P = 0.65) no significant association was not found. But between the rate of cancer progression and spiritual health, statistically significant correlation was found (P = 0.04). Conclusions: The present study shows that most cancer patients have a moderate spiritual level. Also, the level of religious health was higher than existential health. Therefore, paying attention to spirituality in patients with chronic illness is important and it is necessary for health providers to be familiar with the psychic and spiritual factors of patients.