Religious Coping and Use of Intensive Life-Prolonging Care Near Death in Patients With Advanced Cancer

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This article investigated the link between religious coping and the use of intensive life-prolonging care in patients dying of advanced cancer. Researchers found that positive religious coping was associated with more intensive life-prolonging medical care near the end of life. The study concludes that “clinicians should be attentive to religious methods of coping as they discuss prognosis and treatment options with terminally ill patients.” While the findings were amongst terminally ill cancer patients, the same outlook could be extended to patients dying of other causes, such as organ failure.