Taking Refuge in Spirituality, a Main Strategy of Parents of Children with Cancer: a Qualitative Study

Background: Due to the rise in prevalence of childhood cancer the impact on family caregivers is increasing.
Spirituality may be an alleviating factor for improving the quality of parent life. There is a lack of organized spiritual
care in health care facilities, so that this aspect needs more emphasis. Thus this study aimed to evaluate the spiritual
strategy of parents of children with cancer. Materials: This qualitative study was conducted with a conventional content
analysis approach. Fifteen parents of hospitalized children with cancer at the Oncology and Hematology departments of
governmental pediatric hospitals nationwide were purposefully selected. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were
conducted for data collection and inductive content analysis. Results: Eleven sub-themes were extracted in the data
analysis, which resulted in the generation of three themes: “spiritual strategy,” “spiritual escape” and “spiritual growth”.
Conclusion: The spiritual approach of parents of children with cancer had a significant influence on spiritual care
and consequently the acceptance of disease and coping with the associated conditions. Spiritual care clearly should be
introduced into the health care system of Iran, particular for the parents of children with cancer.