A recent study by researchers at the American College of Cardiology suggested that spirituality not only helps improve quality of life for people with chronic diseases such as cancer but also affects heart failure patients. The study was published in the journal ‘JACC Heart Failure’.
It further concludes that spirituality should be considered a potential target for palliative care interventions to improve patient-centered and clinical outcomes in these individuals. Rachel S. Tobin, MD, of internal medicine at Duke University Hospital, said, “Patients who have heart failure experience a poorer quality of life than their peers, with higher levels of depression, anxiety, and spiritual distress. with.” the study.
“Contributing to the declining quality of life is the fact that heart failure, unlike many other chronic diseases, is very unpredictable and can lead to hopelessness, isolation and altered self-image,” he said.
The American College of Cardiology and other major cardiovascular societies recommend palliative care for patients with heart failure. Spirituality is a core area of palliative care, with the goal of identifying and addressing spiritual concerns and providing appropriate spiritual and religious resources to patients.
However, there has been limited research on the effects of spirituality on patients with heart failure, and no known tool has been created to measure it.
According to the researchers, spirituality is difficult to define, but they refer to several definitions that describe spirituality as how individuals find meaning and purpose in life, which may be different from religious beliefs.
For example, the Institute of Medicine defines spirituality as “the needs and expectations that humans have in order to find meaning, purpose, and value in their lives. Such needs can be exclusively religious, but even That even people who have no religious beliefs or are not members of it. Organized religions have belief systems that give meaning and purpose to their lives.
Researchers reviewed 47 articles to explore current knowledge of spirituality in patients with heart failure. It described the relationship between spirituality and quality of life as well as patient outcomes and proposed clinical applications and future directions for spirituality in this population.
About 10 different instruments were used to measure spirituality, some simple, others complex. Key data checks include:
1. In the Palliative Care in Heart Failure (PAL-HF) trial, there was an improvement in spiritual well-being in patients randomized to a palliative care intervention compared to usual care, as assessed by FACIT-Sp. The FICA Spiritual History Tool was also used to collect information on spirituality.
2. Patients randomized to palliative care had increased quality of life as measured by the Kansas City Cardiomyopathy Questionnaire (KCCQ) and the Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy-Palliative Care (FACIT-PAL). They were also found to have lower levels of anxiety and depression.
3. Another study found that after a 12-week match-based psychosocial intervention, patients who completed the intervention had higher quality of life, as measured by the KCCQ, as well as less depression and search for meaning. Of the 33 patients included, 85.7 percent felt that the intervention was worthwhile. In one experimental study, spiritual counseling was associated with better quality of life, although there was no control group to determine whether the effect was significant.
Tobin said, “Literature suggests that spirituality can not only improve a patient’s quality of life, but it can also aid caregivers and potentially help heart failure patients who are hospitalized. can do.”
“What we have suggested and are doing now is developing a spirituality screening tool, which is similar to a screen for depression. This could be used in palliative care to identify patients with heart failure who are There is a danger of spiritual suffering. However, this is just the beginning. More research needs to be done,” he concluded.
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