Spiritual Needs and Satisfaction with Life: An Exploration of Mediating Pathways

Abstract

Objectives This cross-sectional study seeks to understand how unmet spiritual needs are associated with lower satisfaction with life by investigating the mediating roles of perception of quality of care and satisfaction with care among a sample of racially/ethnically and religiously diverse hematology and oncology patients. Methods We constructed a path analysis relating spiritual needs, perception of quality of care, satisfaction with care, and satisfaction with life. Results Seven hundred twenty-seven hematology and oncology patients (M_Age = 59.0, 67.8% female) were recruited from four outpatient hematology/medical oncology sites. We found support for a serial multiple mediation hypothesis in which spiritual needs were indirectly associated with satisfaction with life through perception of quality of care and satisfaction with care. Specifically, higher spiritual needs were associated with a lower perception of quality of care (b = -0.73, p < 0.001), which, in turn, was associated with lower satisfaction with care (b = 0.26, p < 0.001) and subsequently resulted in lower satisfaction with life (b = 0.40, p < 0.001). Conclusions The findings suggest that non-biomedical elements are important mechanisms through which spiritual needs are indirectly associated with satisfaction with life through the care cancer patients receive. In addition to addressing the quality of care, providers should pay attention to patients’ spiritual needs (e.g., ask questions regarding spiritual needs as part of psychosocial history, refer to chaplains, etc.). Improving spiritual needs may lead patients to experience higher-quality care and, subsequently, a better quality of life.