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Spirituality
May Help
Relieve Pain of Arthritis
NEW
YORK (Reuters Health) - Patients who use religion or spirituality
to cope with the chronic pain of rheumatoid arthritis can reduce
their pain and boost their sense of well being, preliminary study
findings suggest.
The report
found that patients who felt a desire to be closer to God, felt
touched by the beauty of creation or reported other daily spiritual
experiences were more likely to be in a good mood and to have
social support. Individuals who used religion as a key coping
strategy for their pain reported much higher levels of emotional,
social and disease-related support, findings show.
``One might
expect that people coping with chronic illness or chronic pain
might find it difficult to maintain a positive outlook or feel
connected to God or the beauty of life. The results of this study
suggest otherwise,'' write Dr. Francis J. Keefe of Duke University
Medical School in Durham, North Carolina and colleagues.
In the study,
35 people diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis were asked to keep
daily diaries of their moods, religious and/or spiritual experiences,
levels of pain and coping strategies.
The findings
appear in the April issue of The Journal of Pain.
``Persons
who reported being able to control and decrease pain using positive
religious and spiritual coping strategies were less likely to
experience joint pain and more likely (to experience) positive
mood and higher levels of social support,'' Keefe told Reuters
Health.
In addition,
these patients used positive religious and spiritual strategies
for coping with their disease more much more frequently than they
used negative religious and spiritual coping strategies, for example
``God is punishing me for my sins,'' Keefe said.
The authors
stress that the types of spiritual experiences patients reported
using in their diaries were not ``unusual phenomena, such as seeing
visions or having out of body experiences, but rather spiritual
experiences that ordinary people have in the context of daily
life.''
The study,
Keefe said, suggests that understanding the daily spiritual and
religious experiences of patients is important in key to understanding
their experience of their disease.
SOURCE:
The Journal of Pain 2001;2:101-110.
Additonal
Resources on Spirituality (relation to Palliative Care)
Reference
Source 89
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