Case Control Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2021. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Psychiatr. Aug 19, 2021; 11(8): 449-462
Published online Aug 19, 2021. doi: 10.5498/wjp.v11.i8.449
Impact of spiritual care on the spiritual and mental health and quality of life of patients with advanced cancer
Xiang-Hong Sun, Xing Liu, Bo Zhang, Yu-Mei Wang, Ling Fan
Xiang-Hong Sun, Intensive Care Unit, Shengjing Hospital of China Medical University, Shenyang 110004, Liaoning Province, China
Xing Liu, Department of Urology, Shaanxi Provincial People's Hospital, Xi’an 710000, Shaanxi Province, China
Bo Zhang, Department of Oncology, Shengjing Hospital of China Medical University, Shenyang 110004, Liaoning Province, China
Yu-Mei Wang, Hospice Care Unit, Shengjing Hospital of China Medical University, Shenyang 110004, Liaoning Province, China
Ling Fan, Nursing Department, Shengjing Hospital of China Medical University, Shenyang 110004, Liaoning Province, China
Author contributions: Sun XH contributed to study design, experimental studies, data analysis, and manuscript writing; Liu X contributed to literature research, experimental studies, data analysis, and statistical analysis; Zhang B contributed to literature research, data analysis, and statistical analysis; Wang YM contributed to experimental studies and data acquisition; Fan L contributed to study design, manuscript revision, and manuscript final version approval.
Institutional review board statement: This study was reviewed and approved by the Ethics Committee of Shengjing Hospital of China Medical University (Approval No.: 2018PS362K).
Informed consent statement: All study participants, or their legal guardian, provided informed written consent prior to study enrollment.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All authors have no conflict of interest to declare.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE Statement—checklist of items, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE Statement—checklist of items.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Ling Fan, PhD, Chief Nurse, Full Professor, Nursing Department, Shengjing Hospital of China Medical University, No. 36 Sanhao Street, Shenyang 110004, Liaoning Province, China. fanl@sj-hospital.org
Received: March 18, 2021
Peer-review started: March 18, 2021
First decision: June 5, 2021
Revised: June 18, 2021
Accepted: July 14, 2021
Article in press: July 14, 2021
Published online: August 19, 2021
Processing time: 147 Days and 0.4 Hours
ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS
Research background

The quality of life of patients with advanced cancer is generally low, including psychological, physical, social, family, and other aspects. Spiritual care is thought to improve the quality of life for people with advanced cancer. While developed countries have developed mature care models, there is currently a lack of systematic spiritual care programs for patients with advanced cancer in developing countries. This study referred to the mature spiritual care programs in developed countries, and combined the national conditions of China to construct spiritual care programs suitable for Chinese culture and evaluated its effects.

Research motivation

This study constructed a spiritual care plan suitable for Chinese culture and provided a basis for clinicians to take intervention measures to improve the spiritual health of patients with advanced cancer.

Research objectives

This study aimed to build a spiritual care program for advanced cancer patients suitable for China's national conditions and evaluated its application effect in the Chinese population. Future research could explore the extensibility of this program in different cancer populations.

Research methods

This research adopted the Delphi method to construct the spiritual care plan and the method to study the randomly assigned experimental group and control group. The experimental group used the spiritual care plan, while the control group used conventional care plan. The two groups of patients' were evaluated for spiritual health score, anxiety score, depression score and quality of life score to evaluate the effect of spiritual care plan.

Research results

The results showed that the spiritual-care group had higher overall spiritual health scores, lower prevalence of anxiety and depression, and higher overall quality of life scores than the control group, indicating that the spiritual care plan was an effective solution for Chinese patients with advanced cancer.

Research conclusions

The spiritual care program for patients with advanced cancer developed in this study could improve the spiritual health and quality of life of patients with advanced cancer and reduce negative emotions such as anxiety and depression. Spiritual care for patients with advanced cancer is recommended in oncology and hospice units.

Research perspectives

Future studies may evaluate the generalizability of the plan in a broader population of cancer patients.