High-value clinical care should include questions about spirituality, say the physician-authors of a systematic review from Harvard Medical School.
The investigation involved a religiously diverse panel of 27 experts in spirituality and healthcare, public health or medicine. It is “the most rigorous and comprehensive” analysis of modern studies regarding health and spirituality to date, according to the authors.
Participation in spiritual life is linked to better health in general, the analysis revealed. People who attend religious services, for example, have greater longevity, less depression and suicide, and less substance use, they reported.
And for many healthcare patients, spirituality affects key illness outcomes such as quality of life and medical care decisions, they wrote in a special communication published July 12 in JAMA Network.
“Overlooking spirituality leaves patients feeling disconnected from the healthcare system and the clinicians trying to care for them,” author Howard Koh, M.D., MPH, said in a statement. “Integrating spirituality into care can help each person have a better chance of reaching complete well-being and their highest attainable standard of health.”
Addressing spirituality in clinician-patient interactions may also include the involvement of a spiritual care specialist such as a chaplain, helping to better attend to the whole person when providing care, the authors said.
The study results should “stimulate more national discussion and progress on how spirituality can be incorporated into this type of value-sensitive care,” lead author Tracy Balboni, M.D., MPH, concluded.
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