Replacement of traditional fee-for-service health care with capitation, the rising costs of new medical technologies, the duplication of health services among competitors, and the need to attract physician networks and managed care contracts, are some of the factors that necessitate collaborative efforts among health care facilities. Although the Ethical and Religious Directives for Health Care...

Objective: Religious beliefs may influence end-of-life decision-making among patients with Chronic Heart Failure (CHF). Objectives of the current longitudinal observational study were: 1) to explore whether and to what extent preferences for life-sustaining treatments and willingness to trade survival time for excellent health are influenced by religious beliefs among elderly patients with CHF;...

Background: The tendency for female sex workers to seek health care is highly influenced by physician attitudes and behavior. By identifying medical students' attitudes toward female sex workers and assessing their knowledge of barriers to seeking care, we can focus medical training and advocacy efforts to increase access to care and improve public health outcomes. Methods: In this cross-sectio...

OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was twofold: (1) to address the gap in existing literature regarding provider perspectives about provision of high-quality, culturally appropriate, patient-centered care to Muslim women in the United States and (2) to explore congruence between provider and patient perceptions regarding barriers to and recommendations for providing such care. METHODS Using ...

Although there has been considerable interest in racial differences in family caregiving for persons with dementia, most research to date has either ignored racial diversity or based conclusions on small numbers of caregivers drawn primarily from single site studies. The current study utilized participants from four sites of the REACH (Resources for Enhancing Alzheimer's Caregiver Health) multi...

OBJECTIVES To measure the importance of religion among nursing home residents, describe their use of religious coping strategies, and examine the association between religiousness, religious coping, and psychological well-being. DESIGN Cross-sectional study. SETTING Two nursing facilities in Boston, Massachusetts. PARTICIPANTS One hundred forty cognitively intact to moderately impaired lo...

HP he story of Catholic health care is one of innovation and adaptation, and one .Jfc^in which ethics has had a featured place. In response to changes in the church, in religious life and in health care, Catholic health systems grew dramatically during the 1970s and 1980s in the United States. Building on a long tradition of care, independent Catholic hospitals and nursing homes increasingly ca...

ba ck g r oun d & aim: spiritual care is an integral part of a holistic nursing care. providing spiritual care has a positive impact on patients’ health outcomes. although nurses understand the importance of incorporating  patient’s  spiritual  beliefs  into the care practice,  understanding  their  spirituality before addressing the spirituality of patients is also important. therefore, the ai...

Religion has substantial - positive and negative - influence on South Africa's HIV context. This qualitative study explored possibilities for positive church engagement in paediatric HIV care in a rural district in Limpopo Province, South Africa. Opinions, attitudes and experiences of various stakeholders including religious leaders, healthcare workers and people infected/affected with/by HIV w...

In 1994, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops revised the "Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services." A goal of the Directives is to maintain the moral integrity of Catholic health care institutions and to address controversies in bioethics and health care. The Directives represent a shift to an exclusively principle-based approach to moral reason. This shift th...