• J Palliat Med · May 2010

    Multicenter Study

    "If God wanted me yesterday, I wouldn't be here today": religious and spiritual themes in patients' experiences of advanced cancer.

    • Sara R Alcorn, Michael J Balboni, Holly G Prigerson, Amy Reynolds, Andrea C Phelps, Alexi A Wright, Susan D Block, John R Peteet, Lisa A Kachnic, and Tracy A Balboni.
    • Center for Psycho-Oncology and Palliative Care Research, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, Massachusetts 01225, USA.
    • J Palliat Med. 2010 May 1;13(5):581-8.

    BackgroundThis study sought to inductively derive core themes of religion and/or spirituality (R/S) active in patients' experiences of advanced cancer to inform the development of spiritual care interventions in the terminally ill cancer setting.MethodsThis is a multisite, cross-sectional, mixed-methods study of randomly-selected patients with advanced cancer (n = 68). Scripted interviews assessed the role of R/S and R/S concerns encountered in the advanced cancer experience. Qualitative and quantitative data were analyzed. Theme extraction was performed with interdisciplinary input (sociology of religion, medicine, theology), utilizing grounded theory. Spearman correlations determined the degree of association between R/S themes. Predictors of R/S concerns were assessed using linear regression and analysis of variance.ResultsMost participants (n = 53, 78%) stated that R/S had been important to the cancer experience. In descriptions of how R/S was related to the cancer experience, five primary R/S themes emerged: coping, practices, beliefs, transformation, and community. Most interviews (75%) contained two or more R/S themes, with 45% mentioning three or more R/S themes. Multiple significant subtheme interrelationships were noted between the primary R/S themes. Most participants (85%) identified 1 or more R/S concerns, with types of R/S concerns spanning the five R/S themes. Younger, more religious, and more spiritual patients identified R/S concerns more frequently (beta = -0.11, p < 0.001; beta = 0.83, p = 0.03; and beta = 0.89, p = 0.04, respectively).ConclusionsR/S plays a variety of important and inter-related roles for most advanced cancer patients. Future research is needed to determine how spiritual care can incorporate these five themes and address R/S concerns.

      Pubmed     Full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…