Current Status and Influencing Factors of Spiritual Needs of Patients with Advanced Cancer: A Cross-sectional Study

Abstract

Abstract Background To understand the current status of spiritual needs of patients with advanced cancer and analyze its influencing factors. On the basis of deeper understanding of these relationship, it needs to be confirmed whether this is effective to providing targeted spiritual care support in future studies. Methods In this study, 200 oncology inpatients from Shandong Province were recruited by convenient sampling method to analyzed a cross-sectional survey by general data survey from December 2020 to June 2022. Correlation analysis was used to analyze the correlation between spiritual needs and cancer-related fatigue, anxiety and depression, family care index and social support. Multiple linear regression was used to analyze the relationship between spiritual needs and influencing factors. Results The spiritual needs score of advanced cancer patients at a high level. Correlation analysis showed that spiritual needs had a significant positive correlation with cancer-related fatigue and social support (P < 0.05), and a significant negative correlation with depression (P < 0.05). Multiple analysis showed that cancer-related fatigue, social support and religious belief were the factors influencing the spiritual needs of patients with advanced cancer. Conclusion The spiritual needs of patients with advanced cancer are significantly correlated with cancer-related fatigue, depression, social support and other factors. Religious belief and social support were the main influencing factors of spiritual needs of advanced cancer patients.