Background: The incidence of cancer is increasing in Indonesia. Cancer holistically affects the patient’s life, causing not only physical and psychological problems, but also spiritual distress. However, spiritual needs of cancer patients have not been well studied, in particular for the Muslim population. Indonesia has the largest Muslim population in the world.
Purposes: The purposes of this study were to identify the spiritual needs of Indonesian Muslim cancer patients during their hospitalization and to analyze differences of spiritual needs among demographic characteristics involve gender, age, types of cancer and length of time since diag-nosed.
Methods: This was a cross-sectional descriptive study. Patients with all types of cancers, who self-identify as Muslim, who were at least 18 years old, were hospitalized and cooperative were recruited. The instrument was the Bahasa-version of the Spiritual Needs Questionnaire (SpNQ).
Results: The study subjects involved 122 Indonesian Muslim cancer patients. Most of the participants were female and mean age was 41.08 years. Cancer in abdominal area was the most prevalent type. The mean length of time since diagnosed was 11.84 months. Religious needs domain and "need to pray five times a day" had been identified as the most important for Indonesia Muslim cancer patients during their hospitalization. Meanwhile, statistic test showed that there was the significant difference of spiritual needs among gender, age, type of cancer and length of time since diagnosed as cancer patients.
Conclusion/Implication for nursing practice: The study showed the most important spiritual needs for Indonesian Muslim cancer patients and its differences among age, gender, types of cancer and length of time since diagnosed.. The findings of this study provided new information related Indonesian Muslim cancer patient by nurses. It can be used as guidance to provide spiritual care for by nurses.

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