Development of a One-item Screening Question to Assess Spiritual Well-Being for Advanced Cancer Inpatients in Korea

Context. Spiritual well-being (SWB) is significant for patients with life-limiting illnesses. Thus, shortened versions of questions would be helpful in approaching SWB. Objectives. Our goal was to develop a one-item screening question to assess the SWB of advanced cancer inpatients. Methods. This was a cross-sectional, multicenter study involving adult advanced cancer inpatients from seven palliative care units in South Korea. The candidate one-item questions were three questions scored using numeric rating scales from 0 to 10: feeling at peace (Are you at peace?), self-rated spirituality (Do you think of yourself as a spiritual person?), and self-rated religiosity (Do you think of yourself as a religious person?). The Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy-Spirituality 12 (FACIT-Sp-12) comprised of two subscales Meaning/Peace and Faith was used to assess SWB. Pearson's correlation test was conducted to determine the relationship between the three questions, the total FACIT-Sp-12 score, and its subscales. Results. A total of 202 patients were enrolled. A strong correlation was observed between self-rated spirituality (r = 0.732 and 0.790; P < 0.001 and < 0.001 respectively) and religiosity (r = 0.708 and 0.758; P < 0.001 and < 0.001 respectively) with the total FACIT-Sp-12 scores and faith subscale scores. Feeling at peace showed a moderate correlation with the total of FACIT-Sp-12 scores (r = 0.505, P < 0.01). All three questions had a moderate correlation with the meaning/peace subscale. Conclusion. Self-rated spirituality and religiosity showed better convergence validity than feeling at peace. Therefore, we recommend self-rated spirituality or religiosity as a one-item question for screening SWB in inpatients with advanced cancer. (C) 2021 American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

The study developed a one-item screening question to assess the spiritual well-being of advanced cancer inpatients. Results showed that self-rated spirituality and religiosity had better convergence validity than feeling at peace, recommending their use in screening spiritual well-being in patients.