Spiritual well-being, religiousness and hope among women with breast cancer.

The purpose of this study was to clarify spiritual health by examining the role of spiritual well-being (SWB), religiousness and hope in spiritual health. This was accomplished by obtaining questionnaire information from a convenience sample of 175 women diagnosed with breast cancer. Patients classified as intrinsically religious were found to have significantly higher scores on SWB than did those classified as extrinsically religious. There was no difference in hope scores between intrinsically religious and extrinsically religious patients, although hope was positively correlated with SWB. Existential well-being, a component of SWB, was the primary contributor of hope. The two major prognostic variables, stage of disease at diagnosis and number of positive lymph nodes, did not predict any of the scores.