The purpose of this study was to show the different components of spirituality in the last few weeks of life for advanced cancer patients admitted to hospice and to evaluate quality of life (QoL), pain, anxiety, depression and psychological adjustment to cancer. One hundred and fifteen patients were interviewed with a series of rating scales: the Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy – Spiritual Well-Being Scale, the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, the Visual Analogue Scale for pain, the Brief Coping Orientation to Problem Experienced and the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy Scale – General Measure. Workers and single patients with higher education level showed a worse QoL. Moreover, anxiety and pain were negatively associated with QoL, while spirituality and ‘Instrumental Support’ coping style were positively associated with QoL. In the Italian sample, it was observed that when patients are close to death, faith is a more important component of spirituality than meaning/peace. This study confirms that QoL could be related to physical and psychological symptoms, and this reiterates the importance of faith in end-of-life care.

Objective: Patients with fibromyalgia (FM) syndrome often report a cluster of cognitive disorders that strongly interferes with their work and daily life, but the relationship between impaired cognitive function and self‐reported dysfunction remains unclear. We aimed to investigate the presence of cognitive impairments in patients with FM and to analyze the relationship between the impairments and their evaluation by the patients through a comparison with a group of healthy controls.Methods: In total, 30 FM patients and 30 healthy controls performed a neuropsychological and clinical evaluation of short‐term, long‐term, and working memory; executive function; and self‐evaluation of cognitive impairment and depressive and anxiety symptoms. To thoroughly investigate executive function, we adopted the Miyake model that identifies 4 domains: shifting, inhibition, updating, and access.Results: Our results confirmed the presence of impairments of attention, long‐term memory, working memory, and shifting and updating executive functions in FM patients compared with healthy controls. These impairments are reflected in patient reports independently of depressive symptoms.Conclusion: The use of a self‐reported questionnaire in clinical practice would provide a first and easy screen for the presence of cognitive impairment in FM patients and, in most cases, obviate the need for a time‐consuming full neuropsychological test battery.