Research Projects
Over the past decades there has been a growth in the field of spirituality and health research showing a positive influence of spirituality and spiritual care. Providing spiritual care to patients with serious illness has been associated with better end-of-life outcomes, and unmet spiritual needs can be associated with poorer patient quality of life and wellbeing. Spirituality should thus be incorporated into care for both illness and wellness, as well as being a vital part of future whole person-centered care. Focusing on spirituality in health care would mean caring for the whole subject, not just their disease.
One of the root causes for not accounting for spirituality in medical care is the lack of consensus on the understanding of what spirituality is, and how prevalent spiritual needs are. Spirituality is a broad and complex concept, with no single consensus definition in medical practice and is often considered taboo. According to the International Consensus Conference on Spiritual Care in Health Care, spirituality is the way individuals seek ultimate meaning, purpose, connection, value, or transcendence. Spirituality can include organised religion but extends beyond to include ways of finding ultimate meaning by connecting, for example, to family, community, nature, or things people hold sacred.
Although research supports the importance of spirituality for health, in supposedly secular societies, spiritual matters are rarely addressed in health care and are not considered as a critical pillar of holistic health care. This lack of attention to spiritual needs is partly due to limited information on whether adults in secular cultures have spiritual needs and, if so, what kinds of spiritual needs.
More research on clinical effectiveness of spiritual care interventions is needed and large randomised controlled trials are required to examine the efficacy of spiritual care interventions on clinical outcomes. As with all disciplines, more granular understanding of spiritual needs and their outcomes is needed but care for the spiritual dimension of health is warranted along with the physical, mental, and social aspects that are included under the core umbrella of the health-care system.
One of our objectives is to conduct and support rigorous and comprehensive research studies in the field of health and spirituality.
References:
- Health–Europe, The Lancet Regional. "Time to integrate spiritual needs in health care." The Lancet Regional Health-Europe 28 (2023).
- 2. “Spirituality in Serious Illness and Health,” Tracy Balboni, Tyler VanderWeele, Stephanie Doan-Soares, Katelyn Long, Betty Ferrell, George Fitchett, Harold Koenig, Paul Bain, Christina Puchalski, Karen Steinhauser, Daniel Sulmasy, and Howard K. Koh, JAMA, online July 12, 2022, doi: 10.1001/jama.2022.11086.