End-of-life experience and its toll on quality of life and spirituality: a cross-sectional study.

Background: Breast and cervical/uterine cancer affect body parts that have symbolic meaning for women. Women with this diagnosis at the end-of-life often experience anxiety and depression that severely impacts their quality of life (QoL).

Aims: This study aims to determine how the end-of-life experience impacts on the QoL and spirituality of women with advanced cancer.

Methods: End-of-life patients and their caregivers were evaluated regarding religious and spiritual coping, depression and self-efficacy. Caregivers were interviewed regarding patients' QoL at the end-of-life. A spearman correlation test was used to evaluate correlation between variables.

Findings: Several dimensions of positive religious and spiritual coping stood out for patients at the end of life. However, patients often experienced a negative revaluation of God. Patients reported experiencing low self-efficacy, depression and high levels of stress. The length of hospital stay, time spent in intensive care units and depression also correlated to the amount of worry and stress a patient experienced.

Conclusions: The end-of-life patients had a poor quality of life, and experienced depression, but also used spiritual beliefs and religion as a means of coping with their end-of-life experience.