A latent profile analysis of spiritual well-being and their relation to perceived social support and hope in patients with early-stage lung cancer.

Purpose: This study aimed to investigate the subtypes of spiritual well-being among patients with early-stage lung cancer, examine the characteristics of each subtype, and determine the relationship between spiritual well-being and perceived social support as well as hope within these subtypes.
Methods: A sample of 418 patients with early-stage lung cancer from three hospitals in Hubei Province completed the general sociodemographic questionnaire, the Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy-Spiritual Well-Being, the Perceived Social Support Scale, and the Herth Hope Index. Latent profile analysis (LPA) was used to identify the patterns of spiritual well-being in patients with early-stage lung cancer, and influencing factors of different patterns were identified by univariate analysis and multinomial logistic regression analysis.
Results: Three latent classes were identified: the "low spiritual well-being" (C1, 33.97%), the "moderate spiritual well-being" (C2, 38.28%), and the "high spiritual well-being" (C3, 27.75%). Factors such as nationality, religion, annual household disposable income, perceived social support scores, and hope scores influenced the potential categories of spiritual well-being in patients with early-stage lung cancer.
Conclusions: The spiritual well-being of patients with early-stage lung cancer varies, necessitating customized spiritual care to meet the diverse needs of patients. Additionally, providing comprehensive social support and helping patients achieve positive states of spiritual well-being can promote better cancer treatment outcomes.
Competing Interests: Declarations. Ethics approval and consent to participate: This study was performed in line with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. Approval was granted by the Ethics Committee of Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University (2024009 K). Oral informed consent was obtained from all participants included in the study. Consent for publication: The authors affirm that human research participants provided informed consent for publication of the images in Fig. 1 and Tables 1, 2, 3, and 4. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.
(© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)