Religion and spirituality in the care of patients with chronic renal failure

As the traditional biomedical model expands to include psychological and sociocultural influences, interest in incorporating religion and spirituality into medical care has burgeoned. Most Americans are highly religious and would welcome having their spiritual needs and beliefs addressed as part of their treatment plan. To best serve their patients, health professionals should pay attention to the spiritual aspects of care. Religious commitment has many salutary health benefits, including improved prevention and treatment of mental, physical, and addictive disorders; enhanced coping, quality of life, and self-esteem; and prolonged survival. Patients frequently use religious and spiritual practices as adjuncts to medical care, and generally report benefits from these practices. Patients with chronic renal failure, like most patients with chronic illnesses, have important spiritual needs; they often feel isolated, demoralized, victimized, and hopeless. Authentic faith can help-by promoting optimism, well-being, hope, meaning, and purpose, thereby providing a comprehensive, comforting framework for understanding and assuaging pain and grief, resulting in fewer self-destructive behaviors and a healthier lifestyle. Clinicians should elicit, and encourage, patients' spiritual beliefs and practices, determine how they wish to handle these issues in their delivery of care, and prepare an individualized treatment plan that incorporates these beliefs and practices. An historic reconciliation between medicine and religion-the twin traditions of healing-appears possible, on in which scientifically based medical knowledge and technology is joined with the wisdom, comparison, and healing power of spirituality.