Interventions to support spirituality among adults with cancer: a scoping review

Spirituality is a core component of holistic cancer care, yet additional support is needed to understand and implement spirituality-focused interventions in practice. The aim of this review was to identify available interventions to address spirituality among people with cancer, to explore common components, and to examine efficacy across interventions.

A scoping review was conducted. Research questions and criteria were formulated at the outset, followed by identifying relevant publications, charting data, and collating results. Upon identification of available interventions, each was examined for its components and efficacy.

N = 26 publications were included, representing N = 21 unique interventions. While each intervention varied, they often included key components of prayer, mindfulness/meditation practices, and facilitated sessions with trained spiritual and/or palliative care providers. The effects of interventions varied, with some studies reporting positive outcomes and others reporting mixed effects or no significant changes. Notably, individually focused spiritual support interventions were found to increase hope, spiritual well-being, meaning, self-transcendence, and faith; spiritual group therapy interventions were found to increase spiritual health and spiritual well-being (meaning, peace, and faith); mindfulness-based cancer recovery groups were found to increase spiritual well-being; and psilocybin-assisted therapy yielded improvements in spiritual well-being, faith, and connection.

This review offers a novel examination of interventions focused on enhancing spirituality in cancer care. Given spirituality's central role among many patients and the well-documented desire for spiritual support, future research should clarify which interventions are most effective and under what conditions, to support translation of high-quality spiritual care interventions into practice.