A Spiritual Care Program for Patients With Cancer and Psychosomatic Disorders in Iran: A Protocol Study

Considering that the treatment of cancer and psychosomatic diseases puts a high medical cost burden on the health system, it is necessary to use suitable services to improve the effectiveness of the treatment and thus reduce the costs. This study presents a protocol for developing a spiritual care program for patients with cancer and psychosomatic diseases in Iran. 

This is a mixed-method protocol study. To prepare the content of the program, a systematic review of the literature on spiritual care for patients with cancer and psychosomatic disorders will be carried out after searching databases such as PubMed, Web of Sciences, Scopus, MagIran, SID, and Google Scholar for articles published in Persian or English from 2015 to June 1, 2023, using the keywords such as spiritual health, spirituality, spiritual care, cancer, psychosomatic, depression, and anxiety. Then, the opinions of a panel of experts will be used to finalize the content and assess the quality of the designed program using the appraisal of guidelines for research and evaluation instrument II (AGREE II) tool. The designed service package will then be implemented in the target population. They will be assessed before and after the intervention by using the hospital anxiety and depression scale, distress tolerance scale, hospital service satisfaction questionnaire, and spiritual well-being questionnaire.

The developed cost-effective, non-pharmacological program for spiritual care can be used for patients with psychosomatic disorders and cancers in Iran.