Spiritual well-being of terminally ill patients and next-of-kin caregivers in hospice care: A quantitative and qualitative approach
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Background Terminal cancer patients often endure significant distress, impacting their quality of life. Spiritual well-being provides peace and meaning during this challenging period. Objectives. This study explored the spiritual well-being of terminally ill patients and their next-of-kin caregivers in hospice care, focusing on factors influencing their spiritual experiences. Methods This mixed-methods study included 30 terminally ill patients and 17 next-of-kin caregivers in hospice care. Spiritual well-being was assessed using the Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy – Spiritual Well-Being Scale (FACIT-Sp-12), and symptom distress with the Edmonton Symptom Assessment Scale. Qualitative data were collected through semi-structured interviews at baseline, 1 week, and 1 month. Data were analyzed using quantitative methods and thematic analysis. Results Patients showed a significant improvement in spiritual well-being over time, with FACIT-Sp-12 scores increasing from 28.6 at baseline to 31.3 at 1 month ( p < .01). Symptoms such as shortness of breath ( β = –1.19, p < .001), drowsiness ( β = –1.27, p = .01), and anxiety ( β = –0.60, p = .03) were negatively associated with spiritual well-being. Caregiver spiritual well-being positively influenced patient scores, especially with female caregivers ( β = 0.26, p < .001). Qualitative findings supported these results, revealing themes of spiritual adjustment, the impact of physical symptoms on spiritual well-being, and the crucial role of caregivers in providing emotional and spiritual support. Significance of results Early palliative care facilitates spiritual adjustment in terminally ill patients. A holistic approach addressing physical symptoms and psychological distress is essential. Supporting caregivers, particularly female ones, positively impacts patient spiritual well-being. Tailored interventions considering the unique needs of patients and caregivers are recommended to enhance palliative care quality.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.002 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".