More spiritual help needed for the dying - study

CHICAGO, Feb 9 (Reuters) Doctors may have to take a more active role in addressing the spiritual needs of patients with terminal illnesses, a study has suggested.

Spiritual support appears to help improve the quality of life among people facing death, the research from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School published yesterday found.

But among the patients with advanced stages of cancer who were studied, many said they were not getting that support from religious communities or the medical system.

In the study of 230 patients, 88 per cent of whom considered religion to be at least somewhat important, nearly half said their spiritual needs were largely or entirely ignored by organized religion and 72 per cent said the same needs were not addressed by the medical system.

The study, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, said barriers often hinder doctors from helping provide spiritual support. The worlds of medical science and religion are separated in many hospitals, the authors said, and there is concern that doctors might try to impose their own beliefs on patients.

Doctors need not become spiritual advisers, but ''they can participate appropriately in spiritual care ... by recognizing spiritual needs and advocating for attention to them,'' the study said.

One technique, they suggested, would be to routinely draw up a ''spiritual history'' of patients.

''It's a way of saying to patients that we acknowledge their illness may have a spiritual dimension for them,'' said Tracy Balboni of the Harvard Radiation Oncology Program, lead author of the study. ''It may make it easier for patients to bring up spiritual issues later in the course of their illness and may cue doctors and nurses into special concerns that may arise.

''Our findings suggest that such support can help improve patients' quality of life at the end of life,'' Balboni said.

The study also found that patients who considered themselves religious were more likely to want doctors to make all efforts to extend their lives.

''Religious individuals may feel that because their illness is in divine hands, there is always hope for a miraculous intervention. Religious individuals also may place a value on life that supersedes potential harms of aggressive attempts to sustain life,'' the report said.

REUTERS AKJ KP0904