Seneviwickrama Maheeka, Jayasinghe Ruwan, Kanmodi Kehinde Kazeem, Rogers Simon N, Keill Su, Ratnapreya Sakuntha, Ranasinghe Sriyani, Denagamagei Sashini Shehana, Perera Irosha
Centre for Cancer Research, University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Nugegoda, Sri Lanka.
Department of Community Medicine, Faculty of Medical Sciences, University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Nugegoda, Sri Lanka.
Syst Rev. 2025 Jan 28;14(1):27. doi: 10.1186/s13643-025-02768-5.
Head and neck cancers (HNC) are devastating, thus imposing a negative impact on the appearance of an individual as well as vital activities such as eating, swallowing, speaking, and breathing. Therefore, HNC patients undergo distress, while their caregivers become overburdened. Religion and spirituality can be helpful for patients and their caregivers from diverse cultural backgrounds to cope with cancer. Though well established in palliative care, religion and spirituality are rarely incorporated into usual early oncological care. Despite the availability of heterogeneous literature examining the influence of religion and spirituality on cancer patients, there is notably limited research on this topic across the HNC trajectory. Therefore, this scoping review attempts to answer "What is the influence of religion or spirituality on HNC patients and their caregivers in different contexts?" and will map the evidence on the influence of religion and spirituality on HNC patients and their caregivers in different contexts including geographical areas, cultures, health care systems, and different study settings.
This scoping review was formulated using the guidelines of Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) manual for evidence synthesis: scoping reviews and will be reported confirming to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR checklist). A comprehensive search strategy will include Embase, CINAHL, Scopus, and APA PsycINFO. The OPENGREU.EU and Google Scholar will be used as gray literature sources complimented by manual searches. Our eligibility criteria follow the population, concept, and context (PCC) framework. Patients aged ≥ 18 years diagnosed with HNC and their informal, nonpaid caregivers aged > 18 years will be included. The data will be extracted using piloted data extraction form on sociodemographic, disease-related, and treatment-related factors and outcomes, and the data will be analyzed through descriptive statistics and thematic analysis. The results will be narratively synthesized.
CONCLUSIONS/DISCUSSION: This review will aim to explore existing literature and summarize the findings of studies that examine the influence of religion and spirituality among HNC patients and their caregivers and vice versa over a range of physical, psychological, and social outcomes including quality of life. We also aim to identify existing research gaps. The findings of this review would generate evidence to better inform health care providers in countries and cultures in the management of patients diagnosed with HNC in usual oncological care with due consideration to caregivers.
头颈癌具有极大的破坏性，会对患者的外貌以及诸如进食、吞咽、说话和呼吸等重要活动产生负面影响。因此，头颈癌患者会感到痛苦，其照料者也会不堪重负。宗教和精神信仰有助于来自不同文化背景的患者及其照料者应对癌症。尽管宗教和精神信仰在姑息治疗中已得到充分认可，但在常规早期肿瘤治疗中却很少被纳入。尽管有大量文献探讨了宗教和精神信仰对癌症患者的影响，但关于头颈癌病程中这一主题的研究明显有限。因此，本综述旨在回答“宗教或精神信仰在不同背景下对头颈癌患者及其照料者有何影响？”，并梳理宗教和精神信仰在不同背景下（包括地理区域、文化、医疗保健系统和不同研究环境）对头颈癌患者及其照料者影响的证据。
本综述按照乔安娜·布里格斯研究所（JBI）循证综合手册：综述的指南制定，并将按照系统评价和Meta分析的拓展综述的首选报告项目（PRISMA-ScR清单）进行报告。全面的检索策略将包括Embase、CINAHL、Scopus和APA PsycINFO。OPENGREU.EU和谷歌学术将作为灰色文献来源，并辅以手工检索。我们的纳入标准遵循人群、概念和背景（PCC）框架。将纳入年龄≥18岁且被诊断为头颈癌的患者及其年龄>18岁的非正式、无报酬照料者。将使用预先设计的数据提取表提取关于社会人口学、疾病相关和治疗相关因素及结果的数据，并通过描述性统计和主题分析对数据进行分析。结果将进行叙述性综合。
结论/讨论：本综述旨在探索现有文献，并总结研究结果，这些研究考察了宗教和精神信仰在头颈癌患者及其照料者中的影响，反之亦然，涉及一系列包括生活质量在内的身体、心理和社会结果。我们还旨在确定现有研究差距。本综述的结果将为各国和各文化背景下的医疗保健提供者在常规肿瘤治疗中管理头颈癌患者时提供证据，同时充分考虑照料者的情况。
