How Have Spiritual Beliefs Affected The Health Policy Reform Process

Do patients want doctors to talk to them about their spirituality? This has also been addressed in research projects. Although 65 percent of respondents in the USA Weekend Faith and Health Poll said it was beneficial for doctors to talk to them about their spiritual beliefs, only 10% stated they had had such a conversation with a doctor (23). According to a University of Pennsylvania study of pulmonary outpatients, 66 percent agreed that a physician's inquiry about spiritual beliefs would strengthen their trust in their physician, and 94 percent of patients who valued spirituality wanted their physicians to address their spiritual beliefs and be sensitive to their values framework. Even those who did not believe in spirituality thought doctors should at least inquire about spiritual views in cases of serious sickness (24).

Understanding a patient's spirituality is also beneficial from the perspective of a physician:

Spirituality could play a role in the patient's perception of the sickness. When I was a resident, for example, I met a 28-year-old woman whose husband had recently left her. She learned that her husband had AIDS and requested that she get tested. I tried to explain to her that her sickness was identified early and that recent improvements in HIV treatment were helping people to live longer with their condition when I met with her to inform her that the test result was positive. She kept bringing up God and asking why he was punishing her. I saw we weren't connecting, so I inquired about her remarks. She then proceeded to tell me about being raped and having an abortion as a teenager. That, in her opinion, was incorrect. “I've been waiting for the punishment, and this is it,” she said, and I recall her exact words. She was adamant about not talking about therapy or preventive care, such as immunization. I encouraged her to visit a chaplain on a regular basis, which she did. Meanwhile, I continued to see her and spoke with her about her feelings of guilt and retribution, as well as some HIV knowledge. But it took another year for her to be willing to seek treatment. She needed time to go through her own guilt issues before she could accept and deal with her disease. She now claims that if I hadn't addressed her spiritual concerns on that initial visit, she would never have returned to see me or any other doctor. Spiritual or religious beliefs may influence how patients make decisions regarding their health and condition, as well as the treatments they get. As physicians and health care professionals, it is vital that we pay attention to all areas of our patients' life that may influence their decision-making and coping abilities.

Religious beliefs may influence health-care decisions. Patients who refuse blood transfusions are a classic example, but there are also attitudes about the usage of ventilators and feeding tubes among Jehovah's Witnesses. In the intensive care unit, one of my patients was an 88-year-old man dying of pancreatic cancer. He was hooked up to a ventilator. When his family was asked by the treatment team about withdrawing support, they first objected, claiming that their father was in God's hands and that keeping him on support may allow for a miracle. The family got the opportunity to redefine their own thinking after an ethics consultation and a consultation with a chaplain. They eventually realized that their father's unification with God and a peaceful death could be the miracle. The medical team's respect for rather than ridicule of the family's religious beliefs, as well as the chaplain's skill in counseling and helping the family reconcile their religious beliefs with the reality of their father's death, were critical elements in helping the family cope with the situation.

Spirituality may be a patient's need, and it can help them cope. This was the case with a patient of mine who passed away two weeks ago. She relied on her religious beliefs and practices to cope with her severe chronic sickness. Her deep faith and spirituality helped her cope with her many strokes and diabetes, according to several of the 1500 people who attended her funeral. She was in a coma near the end of her life. Her family invited me to pray beside them at their mother's bedside. The family was able to convey their hope for her recovery as well as their desire to God for strength to deal with her death if that was to be the case during the prayer. Spiritual beliefs and practices were thus the principal resource used by both my patient and my patient's family to cope with sorrow and loss. And this patient and her family wanted me, their doctor, to be aware of their spiritual views and to be open to hearing them expressed in the clinic. Patients may desire to discuss their spirituality with their doctor, join a faith-based organization for support and advice, or use their religious group as a social outlet.

Understanding a patient's spirituality is crucial to providing holistic care. One of my patients, a 42-year-old lady with irritable bowel syndrome, was depressed, with insomnia, excessive anxiety, decreased appetite, and anhedonia. In general, she thought her life lacked meaning and purpose. Medication and dietary changes alone had little effect on her. As an addition to the medical care and counseling she was receiving, I taught this woman how to relax. When meditation and counseling were included to her treatment plan, she improved. Some spiritual orientations can lead to bad coping, as seen in the first example of the HIV-positive woman: increased despair, a lower quality of life, and callousness toward others. This is observed when patients perceive a crisis as a punishment from God, feel excessive guilt, or have a complete faith in prayer and a cure, only to be unable to control their fury when the remedy does not materialize. Spirituality, on the other hand, usually leads to better coping. Patients seek control through forming a relationship with God, asking for forgiveness from God and attempting to forgive others, drawing strength and comfort from their spiritual beliefs, and seeking support from a spiritual or religious community. As a result of these behaviors, there is reduced psychological distress (25).

How does spiritual beliefs affect healthcare?

Given the diversity of religious traditions among our country's citizens, it's no surprise that meeting the religious requirements of patients and their families is a significant challenge for healthcare practitioners and systems. One method providers and the industry as a whole may address this issue and respect religious freedom in healthcare is to provide staff training and implement policies and procedures that promote culturally competent treatment that is sensitive to religious beliefs.

Why Religion Matters in Healthcare

“Religion and spirituality are essential aspects in a majority of the patients seeking care,” according to Cultural Religious Competence in Clinical Practice. Unfortunately, when dealing with tough medical decisions for patients and their families, health providers may not take religious beliefs into account” (Swihart & Martin, 2020). Swihart and Martin offer the following explanations for why religious beliefs in healthcare can have an impact on outcomes:

• When it comes to making medical decisions, patients frequently appeal to their religious and spiritual convictions.
• Religion and spirituality can influence dietary choices, animal-based medicines, modesty, and the gender of their health-care providers.
• Some religions have stringent prayer periods that can cause medical treatment to be disrupted.

“Many patients' worries are lessened when they turn to their faith during healthcare issues,” the authors continue. It is critical for healthcare practitioners to understand and accommodate patient religious and spiritual requirements, as many patients turn to their beliefs when faced with tough healthcare decisions. Patients' religious and spiritual views should be discussed with health professionals, and their evaluation and treatment should be tailored to match their individual requirements” (Swihart & Martin, 2020).

Here are a few ways that religious adherence may restrict the care a patient may receive:

The Amish are a group of people who live in Pennsylvania “Because they consider the heart to be the “soul of the body,” the Amish will not allow heart transplants or, in some situations, heart surgery. This prohibition does not apply to children who have not been baptized. Though seeking medical help is not forbidden by the religion, many Amish are hesitant to do so until it is absolutely necessary. They believe that God is the ultimate healer, hence folk cures, herbal teas, and other natural therapies are likely to be used “antidotes that are ‘natural' They don't use birth control, don't get prenatal care, and don't get preventative screenings” (Lamotte, 2018).

Hindus are those who follow the Hindu religion “The primary sect of Hinduism, Vaishnavism, considers the slaughter of animals, particularly cows, to be sinful. As a result, the faith forbids the use of any medications, implants, skin grafts, or medical dressings containing pig or bovine tissues” (Lamotte, 2018).

Islamists – “All medications, medical dressings, and implants containing porcine components are prohibited by both Sunni and Shia Muslims. They do, however, make exceptions in the event of an emergency or when no other drugs or materials are available” (Lamotte, 2018).

The examples above show how crucial it is to understand an individual's spiritual beliefs in order to achieve excellent healthcare outcomes. We live in a world where religious freedom in healthcare must be considered when providing care. Everyone benefits when providers take the time to learn about a patient's faith and how it may affect their ability to receive care.

Reference

More than 70% of healthcare businesses in the United States employ HealthStream's healthcare workforce education solutions. Our complete learning and competence management systems, which include cultural competency training, enable your employees to provide the finest care possible more conveniently and effectively than ever before. HealthStream's Learning & Performance solutions, which are powered by the industry's leading content providers, connect you to healthcare's largest learning community through a learning management system that you can modify to match your organization's specific needs.

How spiritual beliefs help or support health care practices?

). I teach medical students and doctors to take a spiritual history as part of a social history at every annual exam and, as needed, at follow-up visits. Physicians can use a spiritual history to determine when cases should be referred to chaplains. It invites discussion about one's values and beliefs, discloses coping methods and support systems, reveals positive and bad spiritual coping, and allows for compassionate treatment.

Why is religion and spirituality important in healthcare?

In medicine, religion and spirituality can aid clinicians in empathizing with their patients, collaborating with hospital chaplains, and advancing faith-based initiatives, hospital policy, and legislation.

How are health care decisions influenced by beliefs?

In medical contacts, culture has a significant impact. It has an impact on how a person perceives a disease or therapy, as well as how a physician should treat an elderly patient. The decision-making process may be influenced by culture. Cultural attitudes can influence how a patient seeks care and from whom, as well as how he or she manages self-care, makes health decisions, and responds to a certain therapy. Compliance, or a person's readiness to follow the doctor's instructions, is influenced by cultural factors.

Communication and interactions with doctors and nurses, health inequities, health care outcomes, and even the sickness experience itself are all influenced by culture. Some cultures think illness is the result of a higher power's will, hence they may be less willing to seek medical help.

While many people in a culture share similar beliefs, behaviors, and institutions, there can be significant differences between people. Hispanics from many countries share a strong religious and familial background, although each segment of the Hispanic population may have its own cultural customs and beliefs. Language, family roles, religion and spirituality, sickness definition, and healing and treatment procedures may all be used differently by subgroups.

Some people in Hispanic and other cultures believe in folk ailments like the “Evil Eye” or Mal de Ojo, which causes vomiting and diarrhea by heating the recipient's blood. While the majority of Hispanics seek health care from primary care physicians and other cosmopolitan sources, some still prefer home cures recommended by a folk healer or curandero.

Why spirituality is important in patient care?

Spirituality and religion play a significant role in the lives of the majority of Americans, according to a study published in the Journal of Palliative Medicine titled “Teaching Health Care Providers To Provide Spiritual Care: A Pilot Study.” Religion is vital to almost 77 percent of people, and over 75 percent believe in God or a higher force. Spirituality has been shown in studies to help patients manage with stress, make important medical decisions, and improve their overall quality of life.

Spirituality was not previously considered a part of nursing treatment.

Nurses are increasingly being challenged to recognize and fulfill spiritual requests as the focus shifts to holistic care and recognizing and responding to unique patient requirements. Advanced practice Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) nurses, who work as leaders to drive healthcare teams, are at the forefront of the transformation.

Nurses are employing screening tests to swiftly identify patients who want spiritual therapy in order to meet these requirements. The Rush Protocol, created by Chicago's Rush University Medical Center, is usually regarded as the most reliable spiritual screening technique.

Spiritual histories are also taken by nurses to get a more in-depth look at the patient's spiritual and religious background in order to select the most appropriate support.

For spiritual screenings and histories, Dr. Christina Puchalski of the George Washington Institute for Spirituality and Health in Washington, D.C. gave the following suggestions:

• Spiritual requirements should be assessed as soon as a patient enters the healthcare system.
• Professionals in the medical field should be taught to spot signs of spiritual suffering.

What is spiritual health and why is it important?

Our yearning for higher significance in life is acknowledged by spiritual wellness. We feel more connected to not only a higher power, but also to individuals around us, when we are spiritually healthy. When it comes to making daily decisions, we have more clarity, and our actions are more aligned with our beliefs and values.

We think that your overall health necessitates not only physical but also mental and spiritual treatment. Spiritual well-being has several advantages, ranging from more empathetic relationships to a greater sense of inner calm, but how do we achieve it?

How can personal beliefs affect the care of patients?

What impact might a patient's personal views have on their medical care? Patients' religious, cultural, or social convictions may drive them to: request a procedure primarily for religious, cultural, or social reasons. Refuse treatment that you believe will benefit them in the long run.

What are the benefits of spirituality?

1. Stress reduction

Both physical and mental health are harmed by chronic stress. We lose sleep, develop stiff muscles, headaches, become agitated, weary, and are much too often unpleasant to be around. Unrelenting stress is harmful to our health. Individuals who practice spiritual growth have been demonstrated to experience a significant reduction in stress.

2. Lower your blood pressure

Spirituality can aid in the reduction of blood pressure. As we become older, high blood pressure becomes more common. Our arteries, brain, heart, kidneys, and eyes are all affected by high blood pressure. It might lead to bone deterioration and make it difficult to sleep. With all of these issues, isn't it wonderful that spiritual practices, at the very least, are linked to lower blood pressure?