Spiritual and religious interventions in health care: an integrative review

To describe research on spiritual and religious interventions in Iran. An integrative review was conducted to determine the state of the science in Iran. Iranmedex, Scientific Information Database, Irandoc, Noormags, Magiran and Google scholar were searched to find articles published in peer-reviewed journals from August 2002 to August 2012. A qualitative approach utilizing content analysis was used in the review. Overall, 21 articles on spiritual and religious interventions in Iran''s health care system which met the search criteria were included from 800,000 records in 438 journals. The review shows that there are at least four overarching themes of spiritual and religious interventions: spiritual and religious behaviours, spiritual care as part of a holistic caring approach, spiritual/religious therapy as an effective healing technique, and patients’ spiritual needs. These themes are linked and interrelated. The main concern for caregivers was “hanging on to spirituality” in spite of the eroding effects on spiritual beliefs caused by different factors in the health care system. Spirituality plays an important role in the way people live and die. The majority of the research on spiritual and religious interventions in Iran''s health care system focuses on patients'' need to spiritual care and health professionals'' spiritual approach, as well as factors that influence their spirituality. More research is needed on the factors that influence patients’ spiritual needs, the spirituality of health care providers, and interventions to engender spiritual and religious interventions in the health care system.