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PURPOSE: Individuals with serious illness often desire to discuss spiritual concerns with their physician, yet substantial barriers exist to doing so, including limited evidence of value. This study evaluated acceptability, impact on satisfaction with care and on quality of life (QOL) of a brief (5-7 minute) semi-structured exploration of spiritual/religious concerns. PATIENTS AND METHODS: 118 consecutive patients of four oncologist-hematologists (95% recruitment; 55.1% female, 91.5% Caucasian, 81.3% Christian) with mixed diagnoses, duration (51.7% diagnosed within 2 years) and prognosis (54.2% in active treatment) were alternately assigned to receive the intervention or usual care during an office visit. Assessment occurred just prior to the visit, immediately after, and after 3 weeks. Measures included the FACT-G QOL and FACIT-Sp (Spiritual Well-Being) Scales; BSI Depression Scale; the PCAS Interpersonal and Communication scales; and ratings of acceptability. RESULTS: Oncologists rated themselves as comfortable during the inquiry with 85% of patients. Of patients, 76% felt the inquiry was "somewhat" to "very" useful. At 3 weeks, the intervention group had greater reductions in depressive symptoms (F= 7.57,p < .01), more improvement in QOL (F = 4.04, p < .05), and an improved sense of interpersonal caring from their physician (F = 4.79, p < .05) relative to control patients. Effects on QOL remained after adjusting for other variables, including relationship to physician. Improvement on Functional Well-being was accounted for primarily by patients lower on baseline spiritual well-being (beta = .293, p < .001). CONCLUSIONS: This study supports the acceptability of a semi-structured inquiry into spiritual concerns related to coping with cancer; furthermore, the inquiry appears to have a positive impact on perception of care and well-being.
Kristeller et al. (Thu,) studied this question.