Spirituality and clinical care

doi:10.1136/bmj.325.7378.1434

BMJ 2002;325:1434-1435 ( 21 December )

Editorials

Spirituality and clinical care

Spiritual values and skills are increasingly recognised as necessary aspects of clinical care

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Medicine, once fully bound up with religion, retains a sacred dimension for many. Differing religious beliefs and practicescan be divisive. Spirituality, however, links the deeply personalwith the universal and is essentially unifying. Without boundaries,it is difficult to define, but its impact can be measured.¹This is important because, although attendance in churches islow and falling,^w1 people increasingly (76% in 2000) admit to spiritual and religiousexperiences.²

The World Health Organization reports: "Until recently the health professions have largely followed a medical model, whichseeks to treat patients by focusing on medicines and surgery,and gives less importance to beliefs and to faith $---$ in healing,in the physician and in the doctor-patient relationship. Thisreductionist or mechanistic view of patients is no longer satisfactory.Patients and physicians have begun to realise the value of elementssuch as faith, hope, and compassion in the healing process."^w2 In one . . . [Full text of this article]

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Spirituality and clinical care: Daniel R Nethercott, Matt J Hawker, Ed Day, Simon Wilkes, and Alex Copello
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