Efficacy of spiritual interventions in palliative care: An umbrella review of systematic reviews

Abstract

Background: Spiritual care is increasingly recognised as an essential component of care in palliative settings. Given this growing body of literature on spiritual interventions, there is a need to systematically evaluate and synthesis findings from previous systematic reviews Aim: To systematically synthesise the available evidence from systematic reviews concerning (a) the efficacy of spiritual care interventions and (b) the extent and nature of spiritual care interventions used in specialist palliative care settings. Methods: An umbrella review of systematic reviews was conducted in accordance with PROSPERO (CRD42024455147) and followed the Joanna Briggs Institute methodology for umbrella reviews. Data sources: Electronic databases (Ovid Medline, Embase, APA PsycINFO, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, CINAHL and Web of Science) and references of accepted systematic reviews were searched for systematic reviews from inception to 2024. The AMSTAR-2 criteria was used to assess risk of bias within systematic reviews. Results: A toal of 27 reviews met the eligibility criteria and reported the effects of 14 different spiritual care interventions across 431 studies including 55,759 participants. Findings show that spiritual care interventions especially dignity therapy and life-review may be effective for improving outcomes including spiritual wellbeing, emotional symptoms, quality-of-life and physical symptoms in people receiving specialist palliative care. Under half of included reviews report follow-up data where only emotional symptoms and quality-of-life are reported in more than one review. Conclusion: Overall, spiritual care interventions have positive effects on spiritual wellbeing, quality of life and mood, compared to control conditions. Increased methodological rigour is needed to capture effect and duration of effect with spiritual care interventions at different phases of palliative care.