The divine has a place on the road to recovery
For more than 20 years, Dr. John M. Robertson has seen patients’ religious beliefs influence the outcome of their surgery. Patients with strong spiritual beliefs, he says, often go through their treatment not with fear, but with a sense of peace.
Robertson isn’t alone in his observations.
A nationwide study released earlier this month found that 85% of 1,144 physicians surveyed believe that religion and spirituality have a positive influence on a patient’s health.
“They believe they will do better if God is on their side,” said Robertson, chief heart surgeon at St. John’s Health Center in Santa Monica.
The study, published in Archives of Internal Medicine, found that only 1% of the respondents said religion can have a negative effect on health. Two percent said that religion had no effect, and 12% said positive and negative effects were equal.
The study, which touched on a variety of subjects, also asked whether doctors believed that God or another supernatural being “ever intervenes in patients’ health.” Fifty-four percent said yes. Twenty-eight percent said no, and 18% were undecided.
Robertson, who was not involved in the survey, said his patients who enter surgery with a pessimistic attitude take longer to recover, have complications and become depressed. He has found that those with a positive outlook grounded in their religious beliefs have a quicker recovery and are stronger emotionally.
“It gives me the only hope to ... put my foot forward every day,” said Suzanne Smith, 45, one of Robertson’s patients, who had heart surgery this week.
The question of whether spirituality influences health has been an ongoing debate within the medical community for several years, with at least two decades of research.
For example, the connection between spirituality and health was the topic of an international symposium at UC Berkeley last April called “Spiritual Transformation: New Frontiers in Scientific Research.” Reflecting the wide variety of research on religion and health, studies presented at the conference touched on the value of intercessory prayer as well as the religious outlook of cancer and HIV patients.
Although the results of some studies were not conclusive, they raised intriguing possibilities. One study suggested that people with HIV remain healthier longer when they believe God loves them. Conversely, when people see God as punishing them for their transgressions, they do poorly, the report found.
The Berkeley symposium came a week after another study reported that prayers by strangers had been of no help in the recovery of patients who had undergone cardiac bypass surgery. That study, believed to be the largest of its kind on the therapeutic power of prayer by strangers, involved more than 1,800 patients nationwide.
Consensus on the issue is still elusive. Some physicians disagree to what extent, or in what ways, religion and spirituality influence a person’s health.
However, the subject is popular enough for many medical schools to include courses integrating religion and spirituality with health. Several institutes, such as Duke University’s Center for Spirituality, Theology and Health, also conduct research on the topic.
Dr. Farr Curlin, the lead author of the study released this month and an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Chicago, said he hopes this paper, which he called unique, will shed light on how doctors’ own religious beliefs shape how they interact with patients. A doctor’s beliefs might also influence care, such as birth control or end-of-life decisions, he said.
“It’s always struck me as insufficient to describe physicians as mere objective scientists,” Curlin said.
Curlin noted that the survey found that religious doctors are more likely than nonreligious physicians to recognize a patient’s religious values. Such doctors also are more likely to believe those values strongly influence health, and will interpret their influence in positive, rather than negative, ways.
Fifty-five percent of doctors believe another positive influence of religion and spirituality is a patient’s religious community, which can provide emotional or practical support.
Smith, who sought out St. John’s Health Center from Colorado, is a Jehovah’s Witness and has had members of the denomination visit her in the hospital. They’ve read scriptures and spoken words of hope.
“It really helps to melt some of the worries away,” said Smith, who plans to check out today. “It’s a wonderful network of encouragement, spiritual encouragement.”
Though the majority of doctors said religion and spirituality are positive influences, 38% said religious belief can sometimes lead to guilt, anxiety or other negative emotions.
Alexis D. Abernethy, an associate professor of psychology at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, said negative emotions can be caused by a religious community that judges a person’s illness.
“Support is not always positive,” said Abernethy, who researches areas such as spirituality and health at Fuller. “There are certain diseases that have a little bit ... more stigma attached to them,” he said, citing HIV, AIDS and certain types of cancers.
Patients also can feel guilt or anxiety if they believe their condition is their fault, or a punishment from a higher being, Abernethy said.
Robertson said patients have asked him, “Why is God doing this to me?”
The research also found that 61% of the doctors surveyed said religious and spiritual beliefs do not help prevent “hard” medical outcomes, such as heart attacks, infections or even death.
But in the faith community, some would disagree. David Van Ausdal of Tujunga said his doctor estimated he had 10 years to live after it was discovered that he had prostate cancer. Van Ausdal, 61, passed that mark two years ago.
“God has given me lengthened days and has continued to help,” Van Ausdal said.
