The relationship between spiritual care needs and religious tendencies of cancer patients

This study was conducted to examine the relationship between the spiritual care needs and religious tendencies of cancer patients. The sample of the study consists of 245 patients treated in the oncology department of a state hospital in eastern Türkiye. Data were collected via face‒to-face meetings technique with inpatients between April and September 2024. The "Socio-demographic and Clinical Characteristics Form", "Spiritual care needs Assessment Scale of Patients with Cancer" and "Religious Tendency Scale" were used for data collection. 51% of the participants were female, 76.7% were married, 38% were university graduates, 62.4% had a medium income level and 84.5% received help with their care. The correlation analysis revealed a positive and moderately significant relationship between patients' religious tendencies and their spiritual care needs (r: 0.463, p < 0.001), meaning that as the patients' spiritual care needs increased so did their religious tendencies. In this study, it was revealed as a result of the Wald statistical value that the spiritual care needs of the patients had a great impact on their religious tendencies.