Spiritual health may be high among cancer patients in drug clinical trials

1. In this cross-sectional study, cancer patients enrolled in clinical trials demonstrated high levels of spiritual health, which was positively associated with psychological resilience.

2. Furthermore, several factors impacted spiritual health, including religious belief, nationality, and treatment regimen.

Evidence Rating Level: 2 (Good)

As one of the leading causes of death worldwide, cancer places a significant burden on affected individuals. New cancer treatments must undergo clinical trials to assess their safety and effectiveness, leading to many cancer patients participating in these trials. Those who participate in clinical trials tend to have more advanced cancers and often have high expectations for the treatment of interest. As such, these patients are vulnerable to negative feelings and spiritual distress. Therefore, exploring the spiritual needs of cancer patients, particularly those in drug trials, is necessary. This study aimed to investigate the spiritual wellbeing of cancer patients enrolled in clinical trials and assess the factors that contribute to spiritual wellbeing in this population.

This cross-sectional study included 244 cancer patients enrolled in drug clinical trials at the West China Hospital of Sichuan University between December 2022 and July 2023. Participants were included if they were 16 years or older, had a confirmed cancer diagnosis, and were enrolled in a clinical trial. Participants were excluded if they dropped out of the clinical trial part way through or had a concurrent medical condition. Participants completed the Memorial Symptom Assessment Scale Short Form (MSAS-SF), Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale 10 (CD-RISC 10), and Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy-Spiritual (FACIT-SP) to assess symptom burden, psychological resilience, and spiritual wellbeing, respectively. As well, demographic characteristics and clinical variables were obtained through questionnaires. The primary outcomes were the scores on the different questionnaires and their associations.

The results demonstrated that cancer patients enrolled in clinical trials had high levels of spiritual wellbeing, even more so than standard cancer patients. There was a positive association between psychological resilience and spiritual health and no association between symptom burden score and psychological resilience or spiritual health. Several factors influenced spiritual health, including religious belief, nationality, and treatment regimen. Notably, those patients receiving single antineoplastic therapy demonstrated lower overall spiritual health. However, the study was limited by the inclusion of mainly advanced-stage cancer patients, which may limit the generalizability of the findings to other cancer patients. Nonetheless, the present study demonstrated that spiritual health is high among cancer patients enrolled in clinical trials.

Click to read the study in Supportive Care in Cancer

Image: PD

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