Health, Spirituality and Medical Ethics

Background and Objectives: Breast Cancer is the most common malignancy and is the second leading cause of mortality due to cancer in women. One of the important psychological factors in these patients is death anxiety. Given the role of religious orientation to this psychological factor, this study was conducted to investigate the relationship between religious orientation and death anxiety in patients with breast cancer in Kermanshah.

Methods: In this cross-sectional study on 48 patients with breast cancer referred to the Oncology Department of Imam Reza (PBUH) Hospital. Templer Death Anxiety Scale and Allport Religious Orientation Scale were used to gather data and the data analyzed by Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney tests in SPSS 22.

Results: The highest and lowest scores of religious orientation in these patients were 76 and 48, with mean score 65.31. The highest and lowest death anxiety scores attained by these patients were 14 (8.3%) and 2 (10.4%), and 72.9% of the patients had high levels of death anxiety. Religious orientation and death anxiety were significantly correlated (correlation coefficient: 0.508), and age was significantly correlated with death anxiety but not with religious orientation.

Conclusion: Given the findings of the present study, it cannot be definitely argued that religious orientation and death anxiety are correlated in cancer patients. Therefore, this issue should be further investigated.