Background:  Despite Islam being the world’s second largest religion and despite 22 nations represent the Arabic-speaking Middle East, little is known about the relationship between spiritual well-being and health-related quality of life (HrQoL) for Arabic-speaking Muslims in treatment for cancer.

Aim: To determine whether spiritual well-being is correlated with HrQoL and whether participants’ age, sex, marital status, site of cancer and stage of disease predict spiritual well-being.

Design: Using a cross-sectional design, a total of 159 Arabic-speaking, study-eligible cancer patients who were in treatment at the King Hussein Cancer Center, Amman, Jordan, completed a demographic; the Functional Assessment in Cancer Therapy-General (FACT-G), which assesses the physical, social, functional, and emotional domains of HrQoL; and the Functional Assessment in Chronic Illness Therapy-Spiritual Well-being (FACIT-Sp) questionnaires.

Results: Physical well-being was negatively correlated with the FACIT-Sp for men, divorced, stage 4 disease. Social Well-being was positively correlated with the FACIT-Sp for ages 18-34 and 35-49 years; both sexes; married, never married, and divorced; breast, bone/sarcoma, gastrointestinal cancers; stages 2-4. Emotional Well-being was negatively correlated with the FACIT-Sp for ages 35-49; males; never married; stages of 3 and 4. Functional Well-being was positively correlated with the FACIT-Sp for ages 35-49 and 50-64; both sexes; married or never married; and stages 2-3.  Having lung cancer predicted better spiritual well-being, and the age category 18-34 years and stage 3 disease predicted poorer spiritual well-being.

Conclusions: The FACIT-Sp distinguishes between domains of HrQoL and patient characteristics. Further study on the unique contribution of the FACIT-Sp’s Peace and Meaning subscales to HrQoL is needed.