The spiritual and religious identities, beliefs, and practices of academic pediatricians in the United States.
OBJECTIVE
Physicians' spiritual and religious identities, beliefs, and practices are beginning to be explored. The objective of this study was to gather descriptive information about personal religion and spirituality from a random sample of academic American pediatricians and to compare this information with similar data from the public.


METHODS
In 2005, a Web-based survey of a random sample of 208 pediatrician faculty from 13 academic centers ranked by the US News & World Report as "honor roll" hospitals was conducted. Surveys elicited information about personal beliefs and practices as well as their influence on decisions about patient care and clinical practice. Multiple questions were replicated from the General Social Survey to enable comparisons with the public. Descriptive statistics were generated, and logistic regression analyses were conducted on relevant variables.


RESULTS
Nearly 88% of respondents were raised in a religious tradition, but just 67.2% claimed current religious identification. More than half (52.6%) reported praying privately; additional spiritual practices reported included relaxation techniques (38.8%), meditation (29.3%), sacred readings (26.7%), and yoga (19%). The majority of academic pediatricians (58.6%) believed that personal spiritual or religious beliefs influenced their interactions with patients/colleagues. These odds increased 5.1-fold when academic pediatricians attended religious services monthly or more (P < .05).


CONCLUSIONS
Compared with the American public, a notably smaller proportion of academic pediatricians reported a personal religious identity. The majority believed spiritual and religious beliefs influenced their practice of pediatrics. Whether secular or faith-based belief systems measurably modify academic pediatric practice is unknown.
Catlin
Elizabeth Ann
EA
Neonatology Unit, Pediatric Service, Massachusetts General Hospital for Children, Boston, Massachusetts 02114, USA. ecatlin@partners.org
Cadge
Wendy
W
Ecklund
Elaine Howard
EH
Gage
Elizabeth A
EA
Zollfrank
Angelika Annette
AA
D000046:Academic Medical Centers; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D005180:Faculty, Medical; D005260:Female; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010372:Pediatrics; D010686:Philosophy, Medical; D010865:Pilot Projects; D010818:Practice Patterns, Physicians' / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012068:Religion and Medicine; D012933:Social Identification; D029181:Spirituality; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014481:United States