Role of Spiritual Health in Patient Care: A Review
Abstract
Spiritual or compassionate care involves serving the whole person i.e. physical, emotional, social, spiritual etc dimensions of health. Spirituality has now been identified globally as an important aspect for providing answers to many questions related to health and happiness. The World Health Organization is also looking beyond physical, mental and social dimensions of the health i.e. the spiritual health and its impact on the overall health and happiness of an individual. Spiritual commitment tends to enhance recovery from illness and surgery also. Spiritually is transpired both in order to comfort the dying and to broaden one's own understanding of life at its ending. Spiritual beliefs can help patients cope with disease and face death. So it should be necessarily be add-on in critical stage of disease. Nowadays in some of medical schools in developed countries has included as a curreculam of patient care. Now it is the time that all Medical Colleges should include educating their students about spiritual health care in comprehensive patient care. Medical Council of India should also take some action in this direction.
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Introduction
As technological advances in it tended to change the focus of medicine from a caring, service oriented model to a technological, cure-oriented model. Technology has led to phenomenal advances in medicine also and has given us many technologies helping in diagnosis and treatment of various diseases. However, in addition to this technologies has reduces distances and made our origin broad which is posing an unknown stress to the lives. So in the past few decades physicians have attempted to balance their care by reclaiming medicine's spiritual roots. Spiritual or compassionate care involves serving the whole person i.e. physical, emotional, social, spiritual etc dimensions of health. Such service is inherently a spiritual activity.
Conclusion
Spiritual commitment tends to enhance recovery from illness and surgery also. Spiritually is transpired both in order to comfort the dying and to broaden one's own understanding of life at its ending. Spiritual beliefs can help patients cope with disease and face death. So it should be necessarily be add-on in critical stage of disease. Author has realized this need and suggest more researches in this filed. Now it is the time that all Medical Colleges should include educating their students about spiritual health care in comprehensive patient care. Medical Council of India should also take some action in this direction