Kollara Sukumaran Jyothi, Thoppil Purushothaman Sumesh
BACKGROUND Chronic pain is a distressing situation. Diverting life into more religious and spiritual sphere in order to cope with a distressing situation is practiced everywhere. But these are not studied in Indian scenario. MATERIALS AND METHODS Patients with chronic pain are recruited from pain clinic of Christian Medical Collage, Vellore. After getting informed consent, socio demographic information were collected. Visual analogue scale (VAS) was administered for assessment of pain severity. Royal free questionnaire for religiosity and spirituality was also administered. Data was statistically analysed. RESULTS 62 patients with chronic pain syndrome were included in the study of which 71% are religious 24.2% were religious and spiritual and 4.2% were not religious or spiritual. We could not find significant co-relation between severity of pain and religious or spiritual scores. CONCLUSION Enquiring about religious and spiritual dimension was accepted and appreciated by majority and it seems that it is improving doctor patient relationship. Majority (95.2%) is holding significant religious or spiritual believes in a distressing situation like chronic pain. Effect of prescribing religious and spiritual dimension should be studied further.
