Teaching “spirituality and health” in medical and healthcare undergraduate courses

Aplicações práticas

Abstract

Introduction: In parallel with the advancement of the interface "Health and spirituality" (S/R) in the research field, there is a growth of this subject in Brazilian and international universities. Objective: The objective of this article is to provide a panorama of the teaching of topics related to S/R in Brazilian and international health education, focusing in Brazilian medical schools. Material and Methods: Narrative review using national and international databases, as well as on the authors' experiences. Results: On last decades there is a growth on the field of teaching S/R, with a clear predominance of English-speaking countries. United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom present themselves as a the most prominent countries both on teaching and researching and most of guidelines come from North American continent. In Brazil, we found some studies addressing S/R in Brazilian medical education, with a marked predominance of cross-sectional studies with teachers and medical students. Most of the Brazilian medical schools does not yet present a consistent insertion of the subject on formal curriculum, even though a recent data shows the existence of forty-five academic student groups studying S/R throughout Brazil. Conclusion: The university areas of research, teaching and extension is of vital importance for the production and dissemination of new knowledges. In the area of ​​S/R this is not different, with the national and international literature showing not only a growth of interest, but also in the number of medical schools including the theme in graduation setting. Important to stress that the future teaching should not focus only on theoretical content but also in preparing students able to deal with S/R issues in daily clinical practice.