Most older adults want to keep their healthcare and spiritual or religious lives separate, but they also see a role for healthcare providers in finding meaning or hope in the face of illness, according to a new University of Michigan poll.
According to data from the National Poll on Healthy Aging, 84% of respondents aged 50 to 80 years indicated that they have religious and/or spiritual beliefs that are somewhat or very important to them. Approximately 40% said those beliefs have grown in importance as they age.
“While 45% of older adults say their religious beliefs are very important to them, and 50% say that about their spiritual beliefs, even this group largely wants to keep this aspect of their lives separate from their healthcare,” Adam Marks, MD, MPH, a hospice and palliative care physician at Michigan Medicine, the University of Michigan’s academic medical center, said in a statement.
“But a sizable majority of all older adults — whether or not they say belief is important to them — reported that they’d turn to healthcare workers to help them find deeper meaning in their illness, and 78% believe healthcare workers will help them find hope when they’re having a health-related challenge,” Marks added.
Belief systems create complexities with healthcare decisions
According to poll results, 39% of respondents said they believe that their healthcare providers could help them with finding or supporting religious or spiritual connections, and 58% said that their providers could help them find deeper meaning in their illness.
In all, 70% of those who said their beliefs were somewhat or very important said they would feel comfortable discussing those beliefs with their healthcare provider. But only 26% of respondents indicated that they have talked with a healthcare provider about their beliefs, a figure that increased to 34% for those who said that their beliefs were very important to them.
Among those with religious or spiritual beliefs, 19% said those beliefs influenced their healthcare decisions, but only 28% said they want healthcare providers to ask about them. At the same time, 77% of respondents said that regardless of beliefs, healthcare providers should keep their own personal beliefs separate from how they deliver care.
L.J. Brazier, MDiv, a chaplain at Michigan Medicine’s Department of Spiritual Care, noted that many healthcare systems record patient religious affiliation in an electronic medical record. He also said that medical students and others training in health professions are told to ask about patient beliefs that might affect future care.
“It is important for healthcare providers to recognize the significance that religious and spiritual beliefs have in the lives of many patients, the potential impact of those beliefs on their patients’ healthcare decision-making, and the role that religion and spirituality may have for many older adults coping with health challenges,” the authors concluded.
The poll report is based on findings from a survey conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago for the Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation at the University of Michigan. The poll was administered online and via phone in July among 2,163 adults aged 50 to 80 years.
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