Nurturing Our Soul

Nurturing Our Spirituality

As a faith based institution we recognize the importance of spirituality in health care, as much for ourselves as for the patients we serve. Health professionals in general are beginning to seriously appreciate the role that spirituality plays in the lives of people. There are several reasons for this shift:

1. Medical research is showing that many people are spiritual and depend on spirituality as a major way of coping with physical health problems.
   
   
2. Many medical patients have spiritual needs that they wish health care providers to address.
   
   
3. Spiritual health and practices appear to be related to better mental health and improved adaptation to disability, both for patients and for their caregivers.
   
   
4. Because of better mental health and fewer negative health behaviors (such as cigarette smoking and alcohol consumption), spiritual people tend to have better physical health and to live longer than those who are less spiritual.*

According to recent Gallup polls, most Americans are spiritual. Approximately 96 percent of persons believe in God or a universal spirit, 90 percent pray, and 53 percent have attended religious services in the past seven days.

Spiritual beliefs and practices become particularly important to persons when they become ill, and for health care providers involved in caring for the ill on a daily basis. This is often a time in life when these individuals depend on their spiritual beliefs as a coping mechanism. In many cases spirituality often becomes stronger as a result of changes associated with illness.

In a study of several hundred hospitalized patients the question was asked as to what enabled them to cope with the health problems and changes they encountered with illness. No mention of spirituality was made by the interviewers that might have prompted spiritual responses. Despite this, almost 25 percent of the patients spontaneously reported that spirituality was the most important factor that enabled them to cope.

Spirituality is at the core of the care we offer and is a legitimate goal of health care. We at White Memorial are concerned with the whole person, the inter-relationship of body, mind and spirit in an ever-changing environment. Our goal is to help a person attain or maintain wholeness in all dimensions of their being.

* Fitchett G, Burton LA, Sivan AB. The spiritual needs and resources of psychiatric patients. J Nerv Ment Dis 1997; 185:320-326. Koenig HG, Bearon L, Dayringer R. Physician perspectives on the role of spirituality in the physician-patient relationship. J Fam Pract 1989; 28:441-448.

By Paul Crampton, Director of Chaplaincy Services