Most Psychiatrists Open to Discussing Spiritual Concerns

On the other hand, about three-quarters of both groups said religion can help patients cope with and endure sickness.

Also in the survey, 36 percent of psychiatrists and 28 percent of other doctors said patients "sometimes" used religion or spirituality as a reason to avoid taking proper care of themselves.

Curlin believes it's appropriate for doctors to bring up religion or spirituality "anytime they think it's relevant to the patient's experience of illness or decision-making regarding course of treatment or response to that illness."

But to some doctors, he said, "there's still a strong sense that the spiritual is personal and that the practice of medicine is professional, and those two domains ought to be kept apart as far as possible."

Richard P. Sloan, professor of behavioral medicine at Columbia University, said it is disturbing that doctors believe that spiritual beliefs can lead patients to delay or refuse treatment.

Should doctors ever ask about religion in the first place? Sloan, who's written skeptically about the study of religion's role in medicine, said it can be appropriate in certain contexts.

"You need to know what characteristics of your patients might interfere with your ability to treat them well," Sloan said. Patients who are fasting during Ramadan, for example, might not be able to take four doses of a pill per day.

"The concern that I have is a number of physicians who go way beyond what's necessary and run the risk of manipulating their patients, even coercing them, invading their privacy, taking on spiritual matters as objects of intervention," he said. According to Sloan, appropriate inquiries are fine, but proselytizing has no place in the doctor's office

More information

For more on spirituality and health, visit the U.S. National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine.

SOURCES: Farr Curlin, M.D., assistant professor, medicine, University of Chicago; Richard P. Sloan, Ph.D., professor, behavioral medicine, Columbia University Medical Center, New York City; December 2007,The American Journal of Psychiatry