Religious and spiritual case reports on MEDLINE: A systematic analysis of records from 1980 to 1996

Objective To undertake a systematic analysis of case reports involving reli gious or spiritual issues published between 1980 and 1996. Data Sources MEDLINE, the National Library of Medicine's bibliographic data base covering the fields of medicine, nursing dentistry, veterinary medicin e, and the preclinical sciences. Study Selection A search of 4306906 records indexed on MEDLINE from 1980 to 1996. Data Extraction A fetal of 364 abstracts were found, then subjected to codi ng analysis. Data Synthesis Categories were developed for (1) types of healthcare situat ions involving religious/spiritual issues, (2) religious and spiritual inte rventions, (3) collaboration between healthcare and religious professionals , (4) psychopathology and sensitivity themes, and (5) religious faith/spiri tual path. Although all of these case reports involved religious and spirit ual issues, only 45 (12%) explicitly mentioned a religious professional. Of these, only 8 (245) indicated any collaboration between healthcare and rel igious professionals. Conclusions A paucity of published case report literature exists on religio us and spiritual issues (.008% of the MEDLINE records), indicating that the increasing acceptance of these factors by patients and healthcare professi onals is not yet reflected in scientific and clinical journals. A need exis ts for more documented examples of collaboration between healthcare and rel igious professionals.