In recent years, the healthcare field has increasingly embraced holistic approaches that address not only the physical but also the emotional and spiritual well-being of patients. One such approach gaining attention is the integration of spirituality into physical therapy. Spiritual healing focuses on the mind-body connection, complementing physical therapy by nurturing emotional well-being and fostering a sense of purpose.
This blog delves into the benefits of integrating spirituality into physical therapy, highlighting its potential to enhance recovery outcomes, improve patient satisfaction, and pave the way for a more compassionate and personalized approach to care.
Introduction of Spirituality
The definition of spirituality refers to an intrinsic aspect of humanity. It is something dynamic through which a person seeks a greater understanding of the universe. In addition, they seek a relationship between themselves and their family and society and the earth’s nature.
Spiritual well-being means having a role in life, purpose in life, connection with the surrounding world, belief in a higher being, and a sense of inner peace. It is believed that spirituality can strongly influence health and medical outcomes. For instance, spiritual health is positively related to physical health; it can help patients experience lower pain levels and help maintain mental well-being.
Role of Integrating Spirituality in Physiotherapy
Spirituality and health are linked through a behavioural mechanism, where spirituality motivates people to live healthy (engage in physical therapy, eat well). People involved in religion are found to avoid bad habits like smoking, alcohol abuse, or taking illegal drugs. Moreover, they are more likely to comply with treatment, lead a regular lifestyle, focus on nutrition, and maintain balanced physical activity. In addition, the positive aspect will also allow the patient to be more productive during the treatment.
Practicing meditation, prayer, or dhikr has a calming effect which lowers the levels of stress hormones (cortisol) and regulates blood pressure and heart rate. This allows the muscles to become less tense and create the ideal environment for the body to heal. When a person is spiritually unwell, they may feel powerless, lose hope, and experience adverse emotions that create a negative effect on the person’s physical condition.
By helping patients find meaning in their lives, physiotherapy care not only provides physical care but also reaches the deepest levels of the patient's humanity. This guarantees a harmony that helps to facilitate a balance between body, mind, and spirit, which consequently strengthens the patient’s better coping ability with a health crisis and with hope.
Benefits of Integrating Spirituality in Physiotherapy
Beliefs about spirituality play an important role when one falls sick.
- It makes one believe in and embrace their illness, and frequently it assists individuals to prepare for future well-being.
- Spiritual connection and support aid in eliminating depression and anxiety and provide an increased feeling of peace and serenity.
- Spirituality is seen as an active and positive coping mechanism in pain management.
Those who are linked with spirituality possess a greater pain tolerance and a greater level of psychological well-being. Studies suggest a positive association with love for God or sense of being loved by some Higher Reality with better self-esteem, more self-efficacy, mastery, less depression, less physical disability, and higher rated self-health.
Interventions in Spirituality
In 2005, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Organizations (JCAHO) admitted the way that patients respond to care is affected by their psychosocial, spiritual, and cultural values. The spiritual evaluation is compulsory in some healthcare facilities, including hospitals and home care. Several nurses and healthcare workers are starting to pay more attention to spirituality. Healthcare providers may need to take care of this more often. But there is not much research done on spirituality in PT, the barriers to addressing. Research about spirituality in PT is pretty limited, but there is some literature on it.
Spirituality in physical therapy has been shown to help enhance cultural competence and a more holistic approach to a patient’s plan of care. Nonetheless, many Physical Therapists (PTs) are not comfortable addressing patient spirituality based on insufficient training and/or an unclear role.
The authors suggest that incorporating the Inclusive Spiritual Connection Scale (ISCS), Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy-Spiritual Well-Being Scale (FACIT-Sp), Spiritual Well-Being Questionnaire (SWBQ), the Spiritual Health and Life-Orientation Measure (SHALOM), and the Spiritual Transcendence Scale (STS), and bolstered education can help therapists incorporate spirituality into practice more easily. If PTs integrate spirituality, they’ll be able to provide more holistic, individualized care to their patients. In the end, the writers feel spirituality should be recognized as part of health and health care that will make treatment inclusive.
Surveys Conducted
The first author and second author created a survey questionnaire and mailed it to the Director of Clinical Education/Academic Coordinator of Clinical Education of 182 accredited Physical Therapy education programs in the United States. The survey included an explanation of spirituality, two demographic questions, three factual questions, and 15 opinion questions on importance measured with a Likert scale.
The definition of spirituality was divided into two parts. The first part of the definition was selected due to its breadth, succinctness, and ease of interpretation: “Spirituality is the core life process through which wellness unfolds.” It is important to note here that a broad definition of spirituality was chosen. Here, the definition states that spirituality is not restricted to religion. Further, a virtue of spirituality is that one can be spiritual without being religious.
Take-Home Message
- Spirituality has been an important part of medicine since ancient times. Many doctors are also religious figures who harmonize religious teachings with medical knowledge.
- Including spirituality in physical therapy has great importance on impacting clinical practice, patient care, and health outcomes.
- A holistic approach that includes the spiritual dimension allows clinicians to address the complex needs of their patients more effectively.
- As physical therapy makes changes, allowing spirituality through faith and religious activities in clinics and education will help give compassionate and culturally competent care.
- This way of seeing things can help with patient care, but it may also allow Physiotherapists to connect more deeply with their patients to foster resilience.
- To assist well-being, some of these tools include ISCS, FACIT-Sp, SWBQ, SHALOM, and STS that provide various frameworks to meet the various spiritual needs of patients.
- The main challenge for medical practitioners is to help patients find meaning in the suffering caused by the disease.
- Health (wellness) refers to the balance between various aspects of human needs, such as spiritual, social, emotional, intellectual, physical, occupational, and environmental. As a result, spiritual health is achieved when a person feels harmony with themselves, others, and the universe.
References
Presented by:
BPT III Year Students - Mahek Singh, Madhura Tambat, Mahek Mehta, Esha Rawat, Eunice Selvaraj