The Potential Role of Spirituality in Palliative Care for End-of-life Cancer Patients

Introduction: Palliative care underscores identifying, managing, and treating physical, psychosocial, and spiritual symptoms, focusing on alleviating patients suffering from health problems. However, facing the end stage of serious diseases, physical signs and symptoms are often taken into consideration in medical practice, underestimating the psychosocial and spiritual dimensions of health Spiritual wellbeing, as an intrinsic and dynamic aspect of humanity, coordinated with other health dimensions can promote patients’ quality of life. In palliative care, the spiritual needs of patients should be considered as their importance in coping with end-of-life conditions, especially in patients questions related to hope and the meaning of life. If cancer progresses to the advanced stage, affects all aspects of the patient's life, considering mental, psychosocial, physical, and spiritual dimensions. Therefore, terminally ill cancer patients need to receive palliative care to alleviate suffering from disease and to diminish the burden on families and communitiesMaterials and Methods: The studies supporting this narrative review abstract were retrieved by searching in electronic databases and filtering the search results to English publications. Results: Spiritual well-being influences how individuals face a cancer diagnosis. Patients may experience spiritual distress in any stage of cancer from the point of diagnosis, especially in the terminal phase of cancer. Spiritual care helps cancer patients find purpose and life meaning, manage symptoms, and maintain hope. Recent studies have emphasized that spiritual well-being is associated with a significant reduction of physical and psychological symptoms suffering cancer patients, considering improved levels of physical, emotional, and functional well-being lead to a better quality of life.Conclusions: According to the studies, multidisciplinary teams should investigate efficient approaches and integrate healthcare with spiritual palliative care for cancer patients. In addition, educational and interprofessional projects on spiritual care should be developed and implemented to encourage healthcare professionals, to provide holistic care and improve patients quality of life.

کلیدواژه ها:

Cancer ، Spirituality ، Palliative care ، End of life