KNOWLEDGE, ATTITUDE AND PRACTICES REGARDING "THE ROLE OF SPIRITUALITY IN CURRENT MEDICAL PRACTICE AMONGST MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS" IN A TERTIARY CARE HOSPITAL

INTRODUCTION: Spirituality has been integral part of medicine and health since ancient age. This has been accepted in various developed countries as evident by a plethora of published articles. However, the extent of spiritual component in medical practice in India is largely unknown. The present study is a questionnaire based study to assess the extent of knowledge (awareness), attitude and practices among medical professionals at a tertiary care Hospital regarding role of spirituality in management of health and diseases. METHODS: A pre-designed validated list of questionnaire was distributed among 250 doctors of all specialties at the hospital along with brief introduction on purpose and scope of the study. The questions were collected back personally after giving sufficient time to attempt them. Doctors were evaluated regarding their knowledge, attitude and practice about spirituality in medicine using multiple choice question format. RESULTS: The response rate from participants was 80% (200/250). More than 90% participants had a good deal of knowledge of spirituality but unable to distinguish between truly spiritual practices from traditionally followed religious rituals. More than 70% felt that there is relevance of spiritual practices in health and diseases but pointed out lack of credible scientific data to incorporate these in health management strategy. There was wide variation among participants regarding underlying mechanism/s responsible for spiritual healing. Most of them believed this to be Psychological (90%), Neuroendocrine (70%) or Immunology (26%) and only (4%) attributed it to all these factors. Majority of the participants agreed that spirituality offers maximum health benefits in chronic and incurable diseases. Participants vouched for introduction of spiritual medicine in medical curriculum to be taught by medical professionals with expertise in spirituality. They also opined that there is need to involve health care professionals in spirituality related research work. CONCLUSION: The KAP study shows a huge gap between physician's perception and reality about spirituality. A comprehensive report on concept and application of spirituality in health is lacking. There is an urgent need to undertake concerted and collaborative work by dedicated and qualified professionals to establish role of spirituality in health and diseases.