"These results highlight the need for clinicians to recognise and be sensitive to the influence of religious coping on medical decisions and goals of care at the end of life," the authors wrote. "When appropriate, clinicians might include chaplains or other trained professionals (eg liaison psychiatrists) to inquire about religious coping during family meetings while the patient is in an intensive care unit and end-of-life discussions occurring earlier in the disease course."
Prigerson noted, "A greater understanding of the basis of patients' medical choices can go a long way toward achieving shared goals of care."
Previous research has shown that more religious patients often prefer aggressive end-of-life treatment. But the new study is the first to examine patients in their final days.
Life
Highly religious patients fight to live longer
By: Audrey Barrick
Monday, 23 March 2009, 15:52 (IST)
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