Spiritual care at the end of life in the Islamic context, a systematic review

According to the statistics over 30000 deaths occur annually in iran due to cancerwith an incidence of over 70000 new cases; this growing rate is similar to thedeveloping world. these figures do not take into account other chronic illnesses likediabetes, heart failure, gastro-intestinal disorders, chronic neurological disordersand lung disease, which all warrant palliative care.a systematic review was conducted until the end of 2007, to find out the ways thatpalliative care services are provided for muslim patients suffering from cancer. onlythree papers met the criteria as being original research either quantitative orqualitative, published during the last 10 years. our findings conceded that very fewpapers are available in islamic context about spiritual care at the end of life, whereonly one was quantitative. while cancer is rapidly increasing specially in developingworld, the need of terminally ill patients with other conditions should be equallyconsidered. despite the fact that spirituality in islamic societies exists profoundly,spiritual care must be institutionalised for patients who are in most need at their endof life, which needs more evidence.