Spirituality, religiousness and health: implications for the field of hematology

Interestingly, the same group has recently published an 17 pirituality is understood to be a “personal search to undertand final questions about life, itsmeaning, its relationship to acredness or transcendence that may or may not lead to the evelopment of religious practices or formation of religious ommunities”. In contrast, religiousness is the “extension o which an individual believes, follows, and practices a eligion”.1 In the last few decades, these concepts are gaining more ttention of scientists throughout the world. Studies have een showing that spiritual and religious beliefs could have n important impact on both physical and mental health.1 In ddition, spiritual needs are common among patients, reliious beliefs influence medical decision making and many atients would like their doctors to address these issues.1,2 owever, few Brazilian Medical Schools have courses dealing ith “spirituality and health”3 and few physicians and medial students are prepared to address these issues.4 In order to deal with suffering, patients generally use trategies to manage their condition and its impact, also nown as coping. A frequent strategy employed by patients is he use of religious beliefs and behavior to alleviate the negaive emotional consequences of stressful life circumstances.5 In the field of hematology, spirituality and religiousess have been associated with several positive outcomes: etter quality of life in hematopoietic stem cell translant patients,6 in patients with multiple myeloma7 and in 8 atients with myelodysplastic syndromes ; slower passage f subjective time (which could be a sign of mental sufering) in patients with hematological malignancies9; lower