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This study reports preliminary findings on the hypothesis that worldview can predict cardiovascular and cortisol responses to social stress. Based on theory and previous findings, we assumed that worldview security would provide a basis for stress resilience. Accordingly, religious and atheist individuals were expected to show higher stress resilience than spiritual and agnostic participants. Likewise, dimensional measures of religiosity and atheism were hypothesized to predict decreased, and existential search—indicating worldview insecurity—was hypothesized to predict increased physiological stress responses. Subjects included 50 university students who completed online questionnaires and took part in a standardized social stress test (Trier Social Stress Test). Systolic and diastolic blood pressure (SBP/DBP), heart rate (HR), and salivary cortisol (SC) were assessed at baseline, immediately after stress testing, and during a forty-minute recovery period. Worldview comparisons revealed lower cardiovascular stress responses among religious than among atheist and spiritual participants and particularly high baseline SC among spiritual participants. Across the entire sample, existential search showed substantial positive correlations with SBP, HR, and SC stress parameters. The findings suggest that worldview security might partly explain the health benefits often associated with religion. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1007/s10943-020-01008-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Background: Chronic pain is a complex, multidimensional experience. Spirituality is hypothesized to impact pain experience in various ways. Nevertheless, the role that spirituality plays in multimodal pain therapy remains controversial and, to date, quantitative data on whether and for which patients spiritual aspects should be considered in the treatment of chronic pain is lacking. The aim of this study was thus to investigate the proportion and characteristics of patients with chronic pain who wish spiritual aspects to be integrated in their treatment.Methods: Two hundred nine patients with chronic pain were recruited from five inpatient departments and outpatient clinics in the German-speaking part of Switzerland. Patients filled out validated questionnaires, such as the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), the Resilience Scale (RS-11), the Spiritual and Religious Attitudes in Dealing with Illness (SpREUK), and the 12-item Spiritual Well-Being Scale (FACIT-Sp-12).Results: More than 60% (CI95%: 55.5–67.9%) of the patients wanted to address spiritual aspects in their treatment. These patients were significantly younger, had higher levels of education, and suffered from more frequent and more severe pain than patients who did not wish to address spiritual aspects. Furthermore, there were high correlations with existing spiritual resources and higher scores of spirituality.Conclusions: These results confirm that the majority of chronic pain patients wish spiritual aspects to be considered in their treatment. Additionally, the finding that these patients had more spiritual resources underlines the importance of integrating spiritual aspects in a resource-oriented, patient-centered care approach for this condition.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the beliefs, opinions, and experiences of medical students from a Catholic confessional university concerning spirituality in medical practice. This is a descriptive and cross-sectional study with a sample of 323 undergraduate students, of which 162 were in their first two years of their studies and 161 in the final two years. A validated questionnaire consisting of 58 questions was applied. Although the spiritual dimension was recognized as important for patient care, 95% of students were not familiar with spiritual and religious issues. Advanced students reported that they had not received adequate training in this area. Therefore, this topic should be included in the medical curriculum, preferably in the first years.

Zusammenfassung. Obwohl das Thema Religiosität und Spiritualität (R/S) in der Medizin immer mehr an Bedeutung gewinnt, wurden die religiösen Haltungen von Ärzten und ihre Auswirkungen auf die ethische Entscheidungsfindung in der Schweiz bisher kaum untersucht. Die vorliegende Studie evaluiert deshalb den Einfluss von R/S auf die Einstellung von Ärzten gegenüber ethisch umstrittenen medizinischen Fragen. Die Resultate zeigen, dass religiöse Ärzte mehr Vorbehalte in Bezug auf ärztlich assistierten Suizid, Schwangerschaftsabbruch und dem Verschreiben von Verhütungsmitteln an Minderjährige haben. Eine weitere Analyse belegt zudem konfessionelle Unterschiede: Evangelikale Ärzte haben mehr Vorbehalte, gefolgt von katholischen und protestantischen Ärzten.

The prevalence of risk factors for chronic diseases such as smoking, alcohol abuse, low fruit and vegetable consumption, and lack of physical activity is high among young adults. Health behaviours are influenced by many factors and also by religious orientation, as American studies show. The aim of the present study was to explore whether a similar association with religion exists in Austria (Europe). A cross-sectional survey was carried out in seven randomly selected high schools, whereby a total of 225 11th-grade pupils (64% girls, 36% boys; average age 16.4 years) were surveyed by means of an online questionnaire. The study reveals a positive association between religion and healthy food choices as well as meal patterns. Smoking (number of cigarettes smoked daily) and alcohol consumption (getting drunk) was negatively associated with religion. These negative associations remained after adjusting for confounding factors using logistic regression analysis. Thus, the study showed that religion is associated with a reduction in these risky health behaviours in Austrian high school pupils. However, due to the limitations of the study design, causality cannot be inferred.

Nas duas últimas décadas, os estudos sobre a relação entre espiritualidade e saúde tem crescido significativamente no cenário internacional. No Brasil, as pesquisas nesse campo ganharam maior visibilidade a partir de 2009, sobretudo nas Ciências da Saúde, onde começou a aparecer o termo “cuidado espiritual”. Na Teologia, estudos sobre cuidado espiritual dentro do contexto da saúde são escassos. Este artigo pretende contribuir com a ampliação desta reflexão. Primeiramente, o cuidado espiritual é abordado a partir da produção científica em língua portuguesa. Em seguida, o modelo interdisciplinar de cuidado espiritual é apresentado como uma abordagem holística de cuidado ao paciente e também são delineadas as consequências da aplicação de um modelo de cuidado espiritual. Discute-se ainda, o papel novo e recém definido dos capelães hospitalares, conselheiros pastorais e cuidadores espirituais. O texto conclui mencionando os principais desafios que acompanham o cuidado espiritual interdisciplinar, especialmente aqueles que dizem respeito ao treinamento dos profissionais do cuidado em saúde.