title: Perspectives of Indian traditional and allopathic professionals on religion/spirituality and its role in medicine: basis for developing an integrative medicine program.
abstract: Allopathic medical professionals in developed nations have started to collaborate with traditional, complementary, and alternative medicine (TCAM) to enquire on the role of religion/spirituality (r/s) in patient care. There is scant evidence of such movement in the Indian medical community. We aim to understand the perspectives of Indian TCAM and allopathic professionals on the influence of r/s in health. Using RSMPP (Religion, Spirituality and Medicine, Physician Perspectives) questionnaire, a cross-sectional survey was conducted at seven (five TCAM and two allopathic) pre-selected tertiary care medical institutes in India. Findings of TCAM and allopathic groups were compared. Majority in both groups (75% of TCAM and 84.6% of allopathic practitioners) believed that patients' spiritual focus increases with illness. Up to 58% of TCAM and allopathic respondents report patients receiving support from their religious communities; 87% of TCAM and 73% of allopaths believed spiritual healing to be beneficial and complementary to allopathic medical care. Only 11% of allopaths, as against 40% of TCAM, had reportedly received 'formal' training in r/s. Both TCAM (81.8%) and allopathic (63.7%) professionals agree that spirituality as an academic subject merits inclusion in health education programs (p = 0.0003). Inclusion of spirituality in the health care system is a need for Indian medical professionals as well as their patients, and it could form the basis for integrating TCAM and allopathic medical systems in India.
authors.affiliation: AdiBhat Foundation, R-90, Greater Kailash-I, New Delhi, 110048, India, dr.eshwaran@gmail.com.
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Ramakrishnan
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Dias
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Rane
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Shukla
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Lakshmi
authors.forename: B K M
authors.initials: BK
authors.lastname: Ansari
authors.forename: R S
authors.initials: RS
authors.lastname: Ramaswamy
authors.forename: A R
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Reddy
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Tribulato
authors.forename: A K
authors.initials: AK
authors.lastname: Agarwal
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Bhat
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: SatyaPrasad
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mushtaq
authors.forename: P H
authors.initials: PH
authors.lastname: Rao
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Murthy
authors.forename: H G
authors.initials: HG
authors.lastname: Koenig
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D000529:Complementary Therapies; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007194:India; D055048:Integrative Medicine / Q000379:methods*; D008297:Male; D008519:Medicine, Traditional; D008875:Middle Aged; D012068:Religion and Medicine; D029181:Spirituality; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055815:Young Adult