Spiritual Care

Improve Cancer Patients Physical and Psychological Health with Spiritual Care

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Improve Cancer Patients Physical and Psychological Health with Spiritual Care

 

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“Spirituality and religion can be important to the well-being of people who have cancer, enabling them to better cope with the disease. Spirituality and religion may help patients and families find deeper meaning and experience a sense of personal growth during cancer treatment, while living with cancer, and as a cancer survivor.” – National Comprehensive Cancer Network

 

Receiving a diagnosis of cancer has a huge impact on most people. Feelings of depression, anxiety, and fear are very common and are normal responses to this life-changing and potentially life-ending experience. These feeling can result from changes in body image, changes to family and work roles, feelings of grief at these losses, and physical symptoms such as pain, nausea, or fatigue. People might also fear death, suffering, pain, or all the unknown things that lie ahead. So, coping with the emotions and stress of a cancer diagnosis is a challenge and there are no simple treatments for these psychological sequelae of cancer diagnosis.

 

Religion and spirituality become much more important to people when they’re diagnosed with cancer or when living with cancer and also for their caregivers. It is thought that people take comfort in the spiritual when facing mortality. But, spiritual concerns, such as feelings of being abandoned by god or needing forgiveness for actions in their lives might lead to anxiety and worry rather than comfort and can exacerbate the psychological burdens of cancer or on the quality of life of cancer patients. The research is accumulating. Hence, there is a need to step back and summarize what has been learned regarding the effects of spiritual care on the cancer patient.

 

In today’s Research News article “). Interprofessional spiritual care in oncology: a literature review.” (See summary below or view the full text of the study at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6435249/), Puchalski and colleagues review and summarize the published research literature on the relationship of spirituality to cancer treatment. They define spirituality as ‘Spirituality is a dynamic and intrinsic aspect of humanity through which persons seek ultimate meaning, purpose, and transcendence, and experience relationship to self, family, others, community, society, nature, and the significant or sacred. Spirituality is expressed through beliefs, values, traditions, and practices.’

 

They report that the published literature finds that spirituality is related to improved psychological and physical well-being of cancer patients across a wide variety of cancers at a wide variety of stages. Greater levels of spirituality are related to greater levels of quality of life during and after cancer treatment. On the other hand, cancer often results in higher levels of spiritual distress, including existential distress, hopelessness, despair and anger at God. Spiritual distress is, in turn, associated with poorer physical, social and emotional distress. Hence, spiritual care is important for the well-being of the cancer patient.

 

The published research makes a clear case that spirituality is related to better physical and psychological well-being in cancer patients while spiritual distress is related to worse outcomes. This underscores the need for training of healthcare workers in spiritual care. It is also clear that more research is needed to discover best practices for spiritual care for a variety of different patients.

 

So, improve cancer patients physical and psychological health with spiritual care.

 

“It is not known for sure how spirituality and religion are related to health. Some studies show that spiritual or religious beliefs and practices create a positive mental attitude that may help a patient feel better and improve the well-being of family caregivers.” – National Cancer Institute

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts and on Twitter @MindfulResearch

 

Study Summary

 

Puchalski, C. M., Sbrana, A., Ferrell, B., Jafari, N., King, S., Balboni, T., … Ripamonti, C. I. (2019). Interprofessional spiritual care in oncology: a literature review. ESMO open, 4(1), e000465. doi:10.1136/esmoopen-2018-000465

 

Abstract

Spiritual care is recognised as an essential element of the care of patients with serious illness such as cancer. Spiritual distress can result in poorer health outcomes including quality of life. The American Society of Clinical Oncology and other organisations recommend addressing spiritual needs in the clinical setting. This paper reviews the literature findings and proposes recommendations for interprofessional spiritual care.

Conclusion

Our literature review demonstrates that spirituality is an important component of health and general well-being of patients with cancer, and that spiritual distress has a negative impact on quality of life of patients with cancer. This makes the implementation of spirituality-based interventions essential in order to support the spiritual well-being of patients with cancer. Spirituality and spiritual well-being have been proven to have a positive effect on patients with cancer. Many national (eg, Great Britain) and international oncology palliative care as well as supportive care societies (ie, MASCC) have already created specific recommendations, guidelines and working groups on this matter, but it is important to widen oncology health professionals’ knowledge about spirituality and to implement spirituality as a cornerstone of oncological patients’ care. More research is needed to further our understanding of the role of spirituality in different cultural and clinical settings and to develop standardised models and tools for screening and assessment. Findings from this literature review also point to the need for more robust studies to assess the effectiveness of spiritual care interventions in improving patient, family and clinician’s outcomes.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6435249/

 

Improve Cancer Patient and Caregiver Well-Being with Spiritual Care

psyjdc Leave a comment

Improve Cancer Patient and Caregiver Well-Being with Spiritual Care

 

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“Serious illnesses like cancer may cause patients or family caregivers to have doubts about their beliefs or religious values and cause much spiritual distress. Some studies show that patients with cancer may feel that they are being punished by God or may have a loss of faith after being diagnosed. Other patients may have mild feelings of spiritual distress when coping with cancer.” – National Cancer Institute

 

Receiving a diagnosis of cancer has a huge impact on most people. Feelings of depression, anxiety, and fear are very common and are normal responses to this life-changing and potentially life-ending experience. These feeling can result from changes in body image, changes to family and work roles, feelings of grief at these losses, and physical symptoms such as pain, nausea, or fatigue. People might also fear death, suffering, pain, or all the unknown things that lie ahead. So, coping with the emotions and stress of a cancer diagnosis is a challenge and there are no simple treatments for these psychological sequelae of cancer diagnosis.

 

Not only the patient but also the caregivers have difficult issues to cope with. Providing care for cancer patients can be can be a very satisfying, rewarding, and even joyful experience. But, over time, caregiving can wear the caregiver out and can lead to burnout. Caregiving comes at a cost to the caregiver. It exacts an economic toll in lost work hours, income, and even the opportunity to take a promotion or relocate for a better position. But, more significantly, it exacts a tremendous toll on caregivers’ health and well-being. Caregiving has been associated with increased levels of depression and anxiety as well as higher use of psychoactive medications, poorer self-reported physical health, compromised immune function, and increased mortality.

 

Obviously, there is a need to both care for the cancer patients and also for the caregivers. Religion and spirituality become much more important to people when they’re diagnosed with cancer or when living with cancer and also for their caregivers. It is thought that people take comfort in the spiritual when facing mortality. But, spiritual concerns, such as feelings of being abandoned by god or needing forgiveness for actions in their lives might lead to anxiety and worry rather than comfort and can exacerbate the psychological burdens of cancer or on the quality of life of cancer patients and their caregivers. Hence, there is a need to study the effects of spiritual care on the cancer patient and their caregivers.

 

In today’s Research News article “Spiritual Care Therapy on Quality of Life in Cancer Patients and Their Caregivers: A Prospective Non-randomized Single-Cohort Study.” See summary below or view the full text of the study at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5320005/

Sankhe and colleagues recruited adult cancer patients undergoing surgery whose life expectancy exceeded 6 months and one of their caregivers. This was a pilot study without a control group in which all patients and caregivers were provided with spiritual care consisting of 90 minutes daily counseling, reading and chanting. They were measured at the baseline, discharge and 2, 4, and 6 months following the surgery, for spiritual well-being and quality of life, including physical well-being, social/family well-being, emotional well-being and functional well-being.

 

They found that both the cancer patients and their caregivers had large and significant improvements in spiritual well-being and in all quality of life domains. These improvements were maintained 6 months after discharge. These are impressive effects of spiritual care but, because of the lack of a control condition, any conclusions must be tempered with the understanding that there are a myriad of possible confounding factors. The results do though provide strong evidence for the conduct of a randomized controlled clinical trial of providing spiritual care for cancer patients and their caregivers.

 

So, improve cancer patient and caregiver well-being with spiritual care.

 

“Spirituality and religion can be important to the well-being of people who have cancer, enabling them to better cope with the disease. Spirituality and religion may help patients and families find deeper meaning and experience a sense of personal growth during cancer treatment, while living with cancer, and as a cancer survivor.” – National Comprehensive Cancer Network

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are also available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts and on Twitter @MindfulResearch

 

Study Summary

Sankhe, A., Dalal, K., Agarwal, V., & Sarve, P. (2017). Spiritual Care Therapy on Quality of Life in Cancer Patients and Their Caregivers: A Prospective Non-randomized Single-Cohort Study. Journal of Religion and Health, 56(2), 725–731. http://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-016-0324-6

 

Abstract

Spiritual care is still in infancy stage all over the globe including India. The present study was an original study evaluating the role of spiritual care in cancer patients and their primary caregivers regarding their spiritual and general well-being. The study was a prospective, non-randomized single-group study involving cancer patients undergoing surgery and their primary caregivers. Functional assessment of cancer therapy—general and functional assessment of chronic illness therapy-spiritual care was evaluated during the admission and at the time of discharge, two, four  and 6 months following discharge from the hospital. Descriptive statistics was used for demographic details and repeated measure ANOVA with Dunn’s test was used for analysis of changes in the scores. A total of 107 (63 males and 44 females) patients with a mean (SD) of age 51 (13) years were recruited in the study. Similarly, for each patient one of their primary caregivers was recruited with their mean (SD) age of 39.4 (12.7) years. A total of 11/107 (10.3%) patients died and nine out of 107 (8.4%) were lost to follow-up eventually during the study period. There was a statistically significant (P < 0.0001) increase in the scores at all the follow-up periods in both the patient and their relative groups. To conclude, we found out that spiritual care on the basis of MATCH guideline improved the level of not only spiritual well-being but general well-being also in both the patients and their primary caregivers. Control group could have improved scientific validity of study in accessing effect of spiritual care. Authors believe that more robust comparative study on each principle against all five MATCH principles in future will add scientific validity and clear the various ambiguities in spiritual care.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5320005/