Religious Cancer Patients Want More Aggressive End-Of-Life Care

Compared with persons with a low level of religious coping, individuals who had a high level of religious coping at the start of the study were 3 times more likely to receive mechanical ventilation and intensive life-prolonging care in the last week of life. They were also more likely to prefer “heroic measures”—wanting everything possible done to keep them alive. Finally, those with a high level of religious coping engaged in less advance-care planning than their counterparts who did not lean as heavily on religion. Oncology Nursing News