A religiosidade e espiritualidade no cotidiano de profissionais médicos em Chapecó

Abstract

Religiosity and spirituality throughout human history have strong links to health and health care. Religiosity is the extent to which an individual believes in, follows, and practices a religion. Spirituality is an enigmatic manifestation to the human being. After the 20th century, these two dimensions were fragmented by science. Nowadays, there is a movement to unite science and spirituality/religiosity, knowing that one complements the other and that scientific evidence shows that several expressions of spirituality have a significant impact on the health and well-being of individuals. The objective was to know the religiosity/spirituality of medical professionals working in Chapecó-SC. The sample was composed of 50 physicians. A questionnaire was applied to describe the sociodemographic profile and the Brief Multidimensional Measure of Religiousness/Spirituality Scale (BMMRS-P), after signing the TCLE following all ethical aspects contained in resolutions 466/12 and 510/16 of the National Health Council for research with human beings, approved by the CEP under opinion number 5.658.538. Data were collected online by filling out a Google Forms form. The analysis was descriptive univariate, obtaining simple and relative frequencies for each variable. The final data were statistically treated with SPSS 20.0 software. The mean age of the physicians was 35.1 years. There was a predominance of females 56.0% (n=28). 88.0% self-declared white. 50%(n+25) of the sample declared themselves married/living in a stable union. The average salary was R$25,311.12 (SD = R$15,536.00). Regarding specialization, 62% are specialists, and the most prevalent area is pediatrics (n=7), followed by psychiatry (n=4). Of those surveyed, 74.0% (n=37) of the sample confirmed that they professed some religion/faith, of which 75% (n=28) professed the Catholic religion and 45.9% (n=17) informed that they practiced their religions, while interest in other religions reached 70.2% (n=26). Also, about the respondents who declared to have religion, 21.6% (n=8) of them reported practicing another religion. Of the respondents, 48% (n=24) provide spiritual assistance to their patients, and it is noteworthy that most of them have postgraduate degrees in the areas of pediatrics and psychiatry. In the spiritual dimension domain of the BMMRS-P Scale, females showed greater religiosity when compared to males in relation to daily spiritual experiences (p=0.006); forgiveness because of my spiritual/religious beliefs (p=0.006); private religious practices (p<0.001); spiritual religious overcoming (p=0.014) [Positive (p=0.007]; religious/spiritual history (p=0.030); and Commitment (p=0.046).