The Influence of Religiosity and Spirituality on Health in Canada: A Systematic Literature Review

Muslim Patients' Religious & Spiritual Resource Needs in US Hospitals: Findings from a National Survey

BACKGROUND

Healthcare provided without attending to patients' religious/spiritual needs contributes to inequities.

OBJECTIVE

Assess Muslim American views on the importance and accessibility of religious/spiritual resources in hospitals.

DESIGN/PARTICIPANTS/MAIN MEASURES

A survey was distributed at community events and online to self-reported Muslim adults. It contained measures of religiosity, importance and availability of specific religious/spiritual resources, and conventional sociodemographic descriptors. Analyses utilized chi-squared tests and regression models to test associations between participant characteristics and views on the importance and availability of religious/spiritual resources in hospitals.

KEY RESULTS

Of the 1281 respondents, many (68%; n = 875) were women, and South Asian (39%; n = 492) or Arab (37%; n = 469). Almost all (95%; n = 1203) noted it was important to have their religious/spiritual needs met in the hospital. The most important resources were halal food (93%; n = 1188), a neutral prayer space (93%; n = 1188), and medications without pork or alcohol (92%; n = 1177), yet a minority found such resources available; halal food (17%; n = 111), prayer space (26%; n = 169), and medication without pork or alcohol (9.3%; n = 59). Almost all (92%, N = 1180) felt comfortable identifying as Muslim in the hospital, yet few (27%, N = 173) were asked. Participants with higher positive religious coping placed greater importance on religious/spiritual needs being met (OR 1.15, p < .05). Those regularly attending congregational prayer services (β 0.2, p < 0.001), with more positive religious coping (β 0.11, p < 0.001), for whom Islam informed their whole approach to life (β 0.34, p < 0.001), and those with greater perceived discrimination in medical settings (β 0.03, p < 0.022) placed greater importance on the availability of Islamic resources in hospital. Those asked about religious affiliation (OR 2.23, p < 0.01) had higher odds of believing their religious/spiritual needs were met.

CONCLUSIONS

Muslim Americans have substantial unmet religious/spiritual resource needs in hospital settings. Patient-centered, equitable care may be enhanced by clinicians inquiring about, and mobilizing resources to attend to these.

The landscape of spiritual health and spirituality in Canada: A scoping review protocol

INTRODUCTION

Currently, literature on spiritual health remains limited. Even more so, literature on spiritual health remains limited in Canada. This is exacerbated by the fact that spiritual health is a term that remains widely contested with no concrete definition. Meanwhile, the semantic connection between "religion" and "spirituality" remains ambiguous in the West and scholars hold different positions. In this paper, we outline our scoping review protocol to describe the current landscape of spiritual health and spirituality (in relation to health) research in Canada, including the meaning and understanding behind these two concepts.

METHODS AND ANALYSIS

This protocol for our scoping review is documented in accordance with the PRISMA-P reporting guidelines and adheres to Arksey and O'Malley's scoping review methodology. We will conduct a search strategy across select electronic databases and review the reference lists of chosen papers. Two reviewers, HMB and MM, will independently and blindly screen all title/abstracts and full-text studies for eligibility. Any Canadian-situated studies that centrally mention and focus on "spirituality" or "spiritual health" will be included. Relevant variables will be extracted through an iterative process, with the data charting being continuously reviewed and refined. Findings from this scoping review will support the future of health research and conceptual expansion of health beyond the mental, physical and social. Approval from a research ethics board is not required, nor has it been obtained, as the data is derived from journal articles and academic publications.

Exploring the Religious Practice of Langar as a Route to Health Promotion in the Sikh Community in Northern England: A Qualitative Study

Cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes are prevalent among UK South Asians. Langar is a Sikh religious food practice that could be important in dietary health promotion. This study explored perceptions of langar, its role in health, readiness and strategies for change and whether Gurdwaras (Sikh place of worship) are able to support change. Using an exploratory qualitative design, we conducted eight focus groups and one single interview with 28 Gurdwara attendees (12 males, 16 females), analysing transcripts using thematic analysis. Four themes were developed that described the meaning of langar, the understanding of health among Sikhs, the evolution of langar and implications for health and changing langar to protect health. It can be concluded that any change to langar needs to be gradual, respectful and widely supported. This research has scope to continue in light of the potential impact on health for the Sikh community.

Human Capital Creation: A Collective Psychological, Social, Organizational and Religious Perspective

Psychological, social, cultural, emotional, and organizational perspectives consistently highlight human capital's importance in the literature. We argue that the collective view of different capitals with self-notion is essential for establishing impression, image, and self-esteem. According to the review findings, religious capital could predict context-specific psychological, cultural, social, emotional, and organizational capital. This acknowledgment can assist academics in better understanding how religion, social psychology, and other capitals co-create value in human capital development. This study includes several possible future paths and notes remarkable qualities that can enhance human capital value development research.

The Impact of Negative Moral Character on Health and the Role of Spirituality: A Narrative Literature Review

Although negative moral character is highly prevalent, it is not included in the International Classification of Diseases (ICD). Along with the modification of WHO ICD-11, spirituality should be acknowledged for its potetnial role in the prevention of negative moral traits. This study aimed to explore the effects of negative moral character on health and determine the role of spirituality in improving negative moral traits. This narrative literature review was conducted from 2020 to 2023 in Kabul, Afghanistan. The articles were obtained from the Web of Science, PubMed, and Google Scholar databases. As demonstrated in this narrative literature review, most of the relevant experimental and observational studies have found that negative moral character can have significant negative impact on overall health and well-being. Many studies have established the positive role of spirituality in improving negative moral character. These studies concluded that facilities must be available within schools, universities, and communities for everyone to gain knowledge of spirituality and improve their negative moral character. Considering the adverse impacts of negative moral character on health, the current study proposes the addition of moral disorder to the WHO International Classification of Diseases. According to this literature review, spirituality will improve negative moral character and strengthen excellent moral traits.

Teaching a Canadian Experiential Course in Religion and Spirituality for Undergraduates in Addiction Counseling and Health Sciences: A Social Constructivist Framework

Religion and spirituality (RS) are integral to counseling and health but their incorporation into the curricula of these professions is still lacking. Limited literature is available on how to effectively teach such courses. This article presents a promising experiential, interactive model for an RS course designed for undergraduate students pursuing careers in addictions counseling, therapeutic recreation, and public health. An online course conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic adopted a social constructivist framework that encompassed four key components in its design and delivery: assessing prior knowledge, creating cognitive dissonance, applying new knowledge with feedback, reflecting on learning. Students' feedback in the course indicated their broadened understanding of the plurality of RS orientations and their acquisition of foundational skills with an increased confidence in bringing RS conversations into their practice. This article provides a conceptual and practical framework for educators to develop an RS course for a diverse representation of students and encourages further evaluation of the proposed model to assess its impact on learning outcomes.

Medicine for the soul: (Non)religious identity, coping, and mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic

Although the threat and uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic has become a significant source of distress, using religion to cope may be associated with more positive health. Given the severity and chronicity of the pandemic, religious individuals may also have relied on a variety of non-religious coping methods. Much of the existing COVID-19 research overlooks the role of religious group membership and beliefs in relation to coping responses and associated mental health, with an additional lack of such research within the Canadian context. Thus, this cross-sectional study investigated relations among religiosity, stressor appraisals, (both religious and non-religious) coping strategies, mental and physical health in a religiously-diverse Canadian community sample (N = 280) during the pandemic's 2nd wave from March to June 2021. Numerous differences were apparent in appraisal-coping methods and health across five (non)religious groups (i.e., Atheists, Agnostics, "Spiritual but not religious", Christians, and those considered to be religious "Minorities" in Canada). Religiosity was also associated with better mental health, appraisals of the pandemic as a challenge from which one might learn or grow, and a greater reliance on problem-focused, emotional-engagement, and religious coping. Moreover, both problem-focused and emotional-engagement coping mediated the relations between religiosity and health. Taken together, this research has implications for individual-level coping as well as informing culturally-sensitive public health messages promoting targeted self-care recommendations with integrated religious or spiritual elements during times of threat and uncertainty, such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

Triangulation of Questionnaires, Qualitative Data and Natural Language Processing: A Differential Approach to Religious Bahá'í Fasting in Germany

Approaches to integrating mixed methods into medical research are gaining popularity. To get a holistic understanding of the effects of behavioural interventions, we investigated religious fasting using a triangulation of quantitative, qualitative, and natural language analysis. We analysed an observational study of Bahá'í fasting in Germany using a between-method triangulation that is based on links between qualitative and quantitative analyses. Individual interviews show an increase in the mindfulness and well-being categories. Sentiment scores, extracted from the interviews through natural language processing, positively correlate with questionnaire outcomes on quality of life (WHO-5: Spearman correlation r = 0.486, p = 0.048). Five questionnaires contribute to the first principal component capturing the spectrum of mood states (50.1% explained variance). Integrating the findings of the between-method triangulation enabled us to converge on the underlying effects of this kind of intermittent fasting. TRIAL REGISTRATION: NCT03443739.

The Moderating Roles of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Religiosity on the Relationship between Social Networks and Flourishing: A Study on Community-Dwelling Widowed Older Adults in Malaysia

Widowhood affects the social networks and well-being of older adults. Religion might moderate the relationship between a stressor and well-being. This study aimed to identify the moderating roles of intrinsic and extrinsic religiosity on the relationship between social networks and flourishing among widowed older people and whether this relationship varied across gender. This study involved 655 community-dwelling widowed older Malaysians from Wave 1 (2012-2013) of "Identifying Psychosocial Risks and Quantifying the Economic Costs of Age-Related Cognitive Decline among Older Malaysians" in Peninsula Malaysia. The moderated hierarchical multiple linear regression analysis was conducted to examine the moderating roles of religiosity. Results showed that the moderating effect of religiosity on the relationship between social networks and flourishing was only observed for extrinsic religiosity, not intrinsic religiosity. In terms of gender differences, extrinsic religiosity moderated the relationship between social networks, flourishing only among widows but not widowers. Widows with low levels of extrinsic religiosity should join activities or programs that could expand their social networks to promote higher well-being despite widowhood.

Spirituality and Well-Being of Children, Adolescent, and Adult Students: A Scientific Mapping of the Literature

This study aims to map the selected literature on students' spirituality and well-being to reveal the current and historical research trends in the relevant literature. Bibliographic coupling of the journals, countries, authors, and organizations, and co-occurrences of author keywords were illustrated through VOSviewer. Moreover, citation analysis was done, and h-classics publications were reviewed. The researchers did the initial search on January 5, 2020, and updated all the records on August 14, 2021. Most of the studies showed that students' spirituality was positively associated with their well-being. Most of the researchers preferred to work on samples of adult and adolescent students rather than children. The current and historical trends in the relevant literature are discussed in the paper.