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Integrating Spirituality Into Mental Health Care
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 August 2024
Abstract
To find how best to integrate religion/spirituality (R/S) into clinical care.
This was a qualitative study. 41 mental health patients of varying diagnoses in secondary care underwent semi-structured interviews describing their mental health and spiritual journeys and how these have interacted, before, during and after a period of acute illness. Grounded theory was used. Detailed coding was carried out and themes extracted.
Preliminary results from this project have already been reported, (submitted for publication). 5 main processes by which R/S interacted positively or negatively with mental health recovery were identified:
• R/S experiences, (+ve or -ve),
• Existential crisis, (-ve),
• Influence of faith community, (+ve or -ve),
• Finding a personally meaningful faith, (+ve),
• Changing priorities to a more spiritual outlook, (+ve).
1. Those who described themselves most as being in recovery tended to have more positive R/S experiences, support from a faith community, a personally meaningful faith and have changed their priorities. Most have also found clinical care helpful. However, often R/S was considered more helpful both for personal recovery and symptom relief. For others in this group, R/S enables living a satisfying life despite limitations of illness partially controlled by medication.
2. Those who described themselves most as struggling with mental illness were much less likely to have a personally meaningful faith or had changed their priorities. They tended to have negative R/S experiences, persistent existential crisis and/or rejection from a faith community. Most of these people find both clinical care and R/S issues unhelpful. Some people were finding clinical care helpful but R/S barriers were blocking their recovery.
Spiritual health may be important for recovery from many mental health problems and needs to be addressed according to the 5 themes.
• Possible R/S barriers identified, even if symptoms seem to be responding to clinical treatment.
• Positive R/S experiences and/or support from a faith community used to help overcome R/S barriers.
• Support made available to find a personally meaningful faith and change priorities.
• Referral to spiritual care offered more frequently.
- Type
- 1 Research
- Information
- BJPsych Open , Volume 10 , Supplement S1: Abstracts from the RCPsych International Congress 2024, 17–20 June , June 2024 , pp. S29
- Creative Commons
- This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Royal College of Psychiatrists
Footnotes
Abstracts were reviewed by the RCPsych Academic Faculty rather than by the standard BJPsych Open peer review process and should not be quoted as peer-reviewed by BJPsych Open in any subsequent publication.
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