Spirituality and quality of life in low-income men with metastatic prostate cancer.
OBJECTIVE
To determine how spirituality is associated with health-related quality of life (HRQOL) in an ethnically diverse cohort of low-income men with metastatic prostate cancer.


METHODS
Eighty-six participants in a state-funded program that provides free prostate cancer treatment to uninsured, low-income men completed written surveys and telephone interviews containing validated measures of spirituality, and general and disease-specific HRQOL. Assessments were made following diagnosis of metastatic disease. We used multivariate analyses to assess the effect of spirituality and its two subscales, faith and meaning/peace, on HRQOL.


RESULTS
African American and Latino men, and men with less than a high-school education had the highest spirituality scores. Spirituality was significantly associated with general and disease-specific HRQOL. We also found a significant interaction between faith and meaning/peace in the physical and pain domains.


CONCLUSIONS
Greater spirituality was associated with better HRQOL and psychosocial function. Meaning/peace closely tracks with HRQOL. Higher faith scores, in the absence of high meaning/peace scores, are negatively associated with HRQOL.
Zavala
Mary Wassel
MW
Department of Urology, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA. mzavala@mednet.ucla.edu
Maliski
Sally L
SL
Kwan
Lorna
L
Fink
Arlene
A
Litwin
Mark S
MS
D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D001741:Black or African American / Q000523:psychology*; D015331:Cohort Studies; D004522:Educational Status; D006630:Hispanic or Latino / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009362:Neoplasm Metastasis / Q000473:pathology; D009367:Neoplasm Staging / Q000523:psychology; D010146:Pain / Q000523:psychology; D010555:Personality Inventory; D011203:Poverty / Q000523:psychology*; D011471:Prostatic Neoplasms / Q000208:ethnology / Q000473:pathology / Q000523:psychology* / Q000628:therapy; D011788:Quality of Life / Q000523:psychology*; D029181:Spirituality; D044465:White People / Q000523:psychology*