Mind, Body, and Spirit: Family Physicians’ Beliefs, Attitudes, and Practices Regarding the Integration of Patient Spirituality into Medical Care

This study used a qualitative approach to explore family physicians’ beliefs, attitudes, and practices regarding the integration of patient spirituality into clinical care. Participants included family medicine residents completing training in the Southwest USA. The qualitative approach drew upon phenomenology and elements of grounded-theory. In-depth interviews were conducted with each participant. Interviews were recorded, transcribed and coded using grounded-theory techniques. Four main themes regarding physicians’ attitudes, beliefs, and practices were apparent from the analyses; (1) nature of spiritual assessment in practice, (2) experience connecting spirituality and medicine, (3) personal barriers to clinical practice, and (4) reflected strengths of an integrated approach. There was an almost unanimous conviction among respondents that openness to discussing spirituality contributes to better health and physician–patient relationships and addressing spiritual issues requires sensitivity, patience, tolerance for ambiguity, dealing with time constraints, and sensitivity to ones “own spiritual place.” The residents’ voices in this study reflect an awareness of religious diversity, a sensitivity to the degree to which their beliefs differ from those of their patients, and a deep respect for the individual beliefs of their patients. Implications for practice and education are discussed.Michael M. Olson, Ph.D., is a member of the Department of Family Medicine, University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston.M. Kay Sandor, Ph.D., R.N., is in the School of Nursing.Victor Sierpina, M.D., is in the Department of Family Medicine.Harold Vanderpool, Ph.D., Th.M., represents the Institute for Medical Humanities at the university and Patricia Dayao, M.A., is a graduate student there.Funding for this study provided in part by the John G. and Marie Stella Kenedy Foundation and the George Washington Institute for Spirituality and Health/John Templeton Foundation. Correspondence to Michael M. Olson, mmolson@utmb.edu.     

An Existential Perspective of Body Beliefs and Health Assessment

Successful health assessments are ongoing and rely on a clinician/client interaction, which is influenced by both the client’s and the clinician’s beliefs about their bodies. These beliefs about the human body arise out of religious and cultural contexts. Theories often explain cultural context by comparison of differences and similarities between the client and the clinician and/or between the client and the dominant culture. This approach can carry a bias inherent in the comparison to dominant beliefs held by those with the most power and economic advantage. The author suggests an existential approach in which client and clinician bodies interact each as adept, autonomous individuals with a conglomerate of beliefs about body and health.The author is an Interdisciplinary PhD candidate in Music Therapy and Health Psychology at the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory of Music. Her research goals include the interrelationship of music, spirituality, and cardiovascular health. She is a Board Certified music therapist and has served in that capacity since 1980 in mental health facilities, hospice, and private practice.     

The effects of priming legal concepts on perceived trust and competitiveness, self-interested attitudes, and competitive behavior

Socio-legal scholars have suggested that, as a ubiquitous social system, law shapes social reality and provides interpretive frameworks for social relations. Across five studies, we tested the idea that the law shapes social reality by fostering the assumptions that people are self-interested, untrustworthy, and competitive. In Studies 1 and 2, we found that people implicitly associated legal concepts with competitiveness. Studies 3-5 showed that these associations had implications for social perceptions, self-interested attitudes, and competitive behavior. After being primed with constructs related to the law, participants perceived social actors as less trustworthy and the situation as more competitive (Study 3), became more against a political issue when it conflicted with their normative self-interest (Study 4), and made more competitive choices during a prisoner’s dilemma game when they believed that social relations were basically zero-sum in nature (Study 5). The implications and applications of these results are discussed.     

A comparison of two approaches to education about carrier testing for cystic fibrosis

We tested the efficacy of two types of educational materials for genetic counseling: a traditional information brochure and one adding a role model story. Brochures were alternated weekly at a prenatal genetics center. Subjects were asked to read the brochure and fill out a questionnaire covering demographics and variables from the health belief model (impact, barriers, motivation, susceptibility, knowledge, severity). A group of 409 pregnant women and 251 male partners participated. Study design was quasiexperimental, using a post-test only comparison group. The brochure with modeling enhanced the perception of both risk and the severity of the disease and was inversely associated with the assessment of barriers, but did not directly impact on the decision to pursue testing; only 12% chose to be tested, with no significant differences between groups. While suggestive, the study is not confirmatory and should be repeated with a more heterogenous group of women.     

Robert Merrihew Adams,Leibniz: Determinist,Theist, Idealist

International Journal for Philosophy of Religion -     

Procrastination,Flow, and Academic Performance in Real Time Using the Experience Sampling Method

The authors' aim was to first provide an alternative methodology in the assessment of procrastination and flow that would not reply on retrospective or prospective self-reports. Using real-time assessment of both procrastination and flow, the authors investigated how these factors impact academic performance by using the Experience Sampling Method. They assessed flow by measuring student self-reported skill versus challenge, and procrastination by measuring the days to completion of an assignment. Procrastination and flow were measured for six days before a writing assignment due date while students (n = 14) were enrolled in a research methods course. Regardless of status of flow, both the nonflow and flow groups showed high levels of procrastination. Students who experienced flow as they worked on their paper, in real time, earned significantly higher grades (M = 3.05 ± 0.30: an average grade of B) as compared with the nonflow group (M = 1.16 ± 0.33: an average grade of D; p = .007). Additionally, students experiencing flow were more accurate in predicting their grade (difference scores, flow M = 0.12 ± 0.33 vs. nonflow M = 1.39 ± 0.29; p = .015). Students in the nonflow group were nearly a grade and a half off in their prediction of their grade on the paper. To the authors' knowledge, the study is the first to provide experimental evidence showing differences in academic performance between students experiencing flow and nonflow students.