Do Patients Want Physicians to Inquire about Their Religion?.
- Author:
Serng Bai PAK
1
;
Moon Chul KANG
;
Bok Gi LEE
;
Soo Jin JUNG
;
Hee Cheol KANG
;
Bang Bu YOUN
Author Information
1. Department of Family Medicine, Shinchon Severance Hospital, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Korea. kanghc@yumc.yonsei.ac.kr
- Publication Type:Original Article
- Keywords:
health;
religion;
survey
- MeSH:
Ambulatory Care Facilities;
Family Practice;
Hospitals, Teaching;
Humans;
Korea;
Religion
- From:Journal of the Korean Academy of Family Medicine
2003;24(1):72-79
- CountryRepublic of Korea
- Language:Korean
-
Abstract:
BACKGROUND: In Korea, there has been a few medical studies on the relationship between religion and health. In future, active research is anticipated in this area. However, the validity and methods of performing religious inquiry should be tested beforehand. This study was designed to look into the attitudes of patients about religious inquiries by their physicians and to suggest better methods of religious approach to aid future researches on the effect of religion on health. METHODS: A survey was performed on the religious attitude among 177 patients among which 92 were randomly selected from an outpatient clinic of tertiary teaching hospitals and 85 from two local family practice offices on August, 2002. x2 test was used to verify the difference of results between the subgroups. RESULTS: As a whole, more than half of patients disagreed with religious inquiries by their physicians regardless of medical situation; however, there was a trend that a critical health reasons produced a higher percentage of patients accepting religious inquiry than in ordinary patients. There was no significant difference in answer between the two practice settings but a significant difference among the subgroups with strong religious belief and among those with a particular type of religion existed. CONCLUSION: The results of this study may be used as data on the method of approaching patients with religious inquiries for future studies on the relationship between religion and health, and also should encourage active researches on this subject.
