Spirituality and health-related quality of life in patients with lung cancer.
Erica Maria Belmiro Dos Santos, Kátia Neyla de Freitas Macedo Costa, Maria das Graças Melo Fernandes and 5 others
PMID 40667910WHAT IT FOUND
Lung cancer patients had high spirituality, especially faith, but spirituality was only weakly linked to quality-of-life scores.
Some links were positive, some negative, and symptoms like constipation and financial difficulty were high.
Key findings
01Total spirituality averaged 17.3 on a 0-20 scale, and faith was the highest-scoring facet at 19.
02Links between spirituality scores and quality-of-life scores were weak or weak-to-moderate, with some positive and some negative directions.
03The highest symptom scores were constipation 80.2, financial difficulties 66.2, fatigue 63, pain 53.6, loss of appetite 53.1, insomnia 49, and dyspnea 46 on a 0-100 scale.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
This was a single-site cross-sectional survey of 74 patients, so it cannot show that spirituality causes better quality of life or that spiritual care improves outcomes. The correlations were weak or weak-to-moderate, so the links are small and may not be clinically meaningful. Patients in palliative care, those with severe communication or hearing deficits, and those with insufficient cognitive ability were excluded, so findings may not apply to more advanced disease or impaired patients. Results used WHOQOL-SRPB and EORTC QLQ-C30, and the authors note difficulty comparing with studies using different instruments. The sample was from one Brazilian oncology hospital, with specific cultural and religious patterns, so it may not transfer to other settings.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that spiritual care improves lung cancer quality of life. This was a cross-sectional survey of 74 patients, and it only found weak or weak-to-moderate correlations; it did not test an intervention or show cause.