USE SPIRITUALITY RELATED BELIEFS IN TREATMENT OF PSYCHIATRIC ILLNESSES

Abstract

Background: Spirituality is a theme of religion and philosophy, which are Humanities and work on empirical principals. Psychology and psychiatry are developed from philosophy but have scientific attitude. Patient care is a complex issue and needs conversion of both of these principles.

Aim: We made an attempt to evaluate that use of spirituality principles in patient’s treatment is helpful or not.

Material and methods: Total 510 patients were evaluated. Study group of 260 patients were given spiritual consideration in standard treatment and control group of 250 patients were only given standard treatment. World Health Organization Quality of Life (WHOQOL)-BREF raw score were compared using student t test.

Results: We found that there was significantly more improvement in study group as compared to control group in terms of World Health Organization Quality of Life (WHOQOL)-BREF score.

Conclusion: We arrived at the conclusion that spiritual consideration gives added improvement in treatment of psychiatric illnesses. We should not ignore spiritual beliefs of patients.

Keywords: spirituality, beliefs, psychiatric illness, psychology