OBJECTIVE To understand the meanings of spirituality from the perspective of patients with mental disorders. METHOD Qualitative phenomenological research conducted with nine users of a centre for psychosocial care in a city in the interior of Minas Gerais, Brazil, in February 2014. RESULTS Two units of meaning emerged from the comprehensive analysis: Spirituality is a therapeutic support fo...

Empirical research on fundamentalist biographies—presented are three case studies and a summary of research results—demonstrate the complex biographical-motivational factors for fundamentalist turns, but also a transformational potential. Explaining fundamentalist conversion and deconversion within a theoretical framework of fundamentalism as “modern anti-modernism” and as “dislocation of relig...

For two decades, published research has linked religious participation to various health outcomes. These include diminished risk according to overall and cause-specific morbidity and mortality and to indices of health status, symptomatology, and psychiatric illness, especially depression and anxiety. What may not be apparent to physicians exposed to this literature through featured news stories...

n engl j med 371;7 nejm.org august 14, 2014 596 penetrant genetic mutations that predictably result in disease, clinical sequencing will enable individual screening, monitoring, prevention, and treatment of medically actionable conditions. On the other hand, there will be a large proportion of potentially deleterious variants associated with medium-sized odds ratios for disease and variable phe...

On August 30, 2013, the Florida Department of Health in Columbia County was notified of a Bordetella pertussis laboratory-positive unimmunized child attending a local charter school (316 students from pre-K through 8th grade) in a large religious community averse to health care and vaccinations. Kindergarten immunization records showed that only five (15%) of 34 students were fully immunized wi...

BACKGROUND Burnout is highly prevalent among Emergency Medicine (EM) physicians and has significant impact on quality of care and workforce retention. The objective of this study was to determine whether higher religion/spirituality (R/S) is associated with a lower prevalence of burnout among EM physicians (primary outcome). A history of malpractice lawsuits and maladaptive behaviors were the s...

Background & aim: Many researchers believe that religious doctrines have persistent effects on the mental and physical health and other aspects of human life. This study aimed to investigate the effect of pregnancy-related religious training on religious attitudes among pregnant women. Methods: This interventional study was conducted on 84 pregnant women with low and medium levels of religious ...

The United States has a long history of religious influence on public policy: the anti-slavery movement, progressivism, prohibition, civil rights, abortion, school vouchers, school prayer and nuclear disarmament are all issues that have involved religion and religious groups in policymaking. In recent decades, the number of religious interest groups (as well as interest groups in general) has g...

BACKGROUND Research indicates that religion may have a positive effect on coping and possibly enhance clinical outcomes. This study aims to determine the level of religious interest of psychiatric inpatients and to assess whether religious commitment has an impact on selected outcome variables. METHODS There were 88 consecutive adult patients (50% men) who were admitted to a Canadian tertiary...