Role of Spirituality in Caring for Children with Cancer: A Narrative Review

Diagnosing a child with cancer is associated with a series of stressful experiences and significant suffering for the child and family members. In such situations, one of the strategies that children with cancer use to deal with the disease process is spiritual coping, which aims at managing stress and dealing with critical situations. Therefore, healthcare professionals should have sufficient knowledge regarding the role of spirituality in the care of children with cancer and consider providing spiritual care to the whole family.

The current research is a narrative review that was conducted in 2023 to investigate and identify the role of spirituality in the care of children with cancer. To access related studies, relevant keywords were searched in Persian and English databases. A total of 6 articles in the Farsi language and 42 articles in the English language were extracted. After reviewing these articles based on inclusion and exclusion criteria, 1 article in Farsi and 12 articles in English were included in the study and their results were analyzed.

After analyzing the results of the studies included in the current research, the role of spirituality in the care of children with cancer was classified into five main categories, including hopefulness, coping with the situations created due to the child's illness, achieving inner peace and tranquility, receiving support, and acceptance of the situations created due to the child's illness.

The results obtained in the present study can be used by healthcare professionals as well as managers and policymakers to provide holistic and high-quality care (including spiritual care) to children with cancer and their family members.