Religious and spiritual case reports on MEDLINE: a systematic analysis of records from 1980 to 1996.

OBJECTIVE

To undertake a systematic analysis of case reports involving religious or spiritual issues published between 1980 and 1996.

DATA SOURCES

MEDLINE, the National Library of Medicine's bibliographic database covering the fields of medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, and the preclinical sciences.

STUDY SELECTION

A search of 4,306,906 records indexed on MEDLINE from 1980 to 1996.

DATA EXTRACTION

A total of 364 abstracts were found, then subjected to coding analysis.

DATA SYNTHESIS

Categories were developed for (1) types of healthcare situations involving religious/spiritual issues, (2) religious and spiritual interventions, (3) collaboration between healthcare and religious professionals, (4) psychopathology and sensitivity themes, and (5) religious faith/spiritual path. Although all of these case reports involved religious and spiritual issues, only 45 (12%) explicitly mentioned a religious professional. Of these, only 8 (2%) indicated any collaboration between healthcare and religious professionals.

CONCLUSIONS

A paucity of published case report literature exists on religious and spiritual issues (.008% of the MEDLINE records), indicating that the increasing acceptance of these factors by patients and healthcare professionals is not yet reflected in scientific and clinical journals. A need exists for more documented examples of collaboration between healthcare and religious professionals.