Relationship Between Spiritual Care Needs, Sleep Quality in Older Patients with Cancer

Objective: To investigate the spiritual care needs and sleep quality of older patients with cancer and determine the relationship between these variables. Materials and Methods: Research was conducted with 174 older patients with cancer. Data were collected using Introductory Information Form, Spiritual Care Needs Inventory, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index. Data were analyzed using Independent Two Sample T, Mann Whitney U, One-Way Analysis of Variance and Pearson Correlation Tests. Results: The spiritual care needs of those who were married, never used caffeine, used traditional treatment, and who could not fulfill their religious activities during cancer process were higher. Participants with additional chronic diseases had poor sleep quality. 71.8% of participants had poor sleep quality, 58.3% of those had high spiritual care needs. According to mean scores of the scales, participants had moderate spiritual care needs, poor sleep quality. No significant relationship (r= -0.026; p=0.733) was found between spiritual care needs and sleep quality. Conclusion: Although there was no relationship between spiritual care needs and sleep quality of older patients with cancer, they had spiritual care needs and their sleep quality was poor. The spiritual care needs of this population should be met and interventions to improve sleep quality should be planned.