Meta-integration of qualitative studies on spiritual experience in palliative care for advanced cancer patients

To conduct a qualitative meta-integration of existing empirical qualitative research on the spiritual experiences and unmet spiritual needs of advanced cancer patients receiving palliative care worldwide, so as to systematically synthesize the core spiritual perceptions, triggering factors of spiritual needs and spiritual coping strategies of this population, and provide evidence-based reference for exploring individualized holistic care oriented to the spiritual needs of advanced cancer patients and building a palliative care support system based on spiritual care.

Qualitative studies on spiritual needs of patients with advanced palliative care for cancer were searched in PubMed, Web of Science, ProQuest, Wanfang database, CNKI and VIP database, and the search time was from the establishment of the database to January 2024. The quality of the literature was evaluated using the Quality Evaluation Criteria of the Center for Qualitative Research in Evidence-based Health Care (Joanna Briggs Institute, Australia) (2016), and the results were integrated by Meta integration method.

A total of 17 literatures were included, and 138 main research results were extracted. The similar results were summarized into 13 new categories and integrated into 3 results: (1) Hope, religion and wisdom are the spiritual understanding of patients in palliative care; (2) The physical and mental burden, the challenge of family care and social relationship, and the conflict of self-role are the possible factors that trigger the spiritual needs of cancer patients; (3) Self-awareness, resilience and reconstruction of interpersonal relationships are the spiritual responses to palliative care for cancer patients.

Patients with advanced cancer in palliative care have heavy physical and mental burden and long for love and support. Attention should be paid to the real inner experience and spiritual needs of cancer patients in palliative care, and individualized holistic care should be provided to promote patients to recover or maintain physical, mental, social and spiritual health.