Patients who use religion or spirituality to cope with the chronic pain of rheumatoid arthritis can reduce their pain and boost their sense of well being, preliminary study findings suggest .
The report found that patients who felt a desire to be closer to God, felt touched by the beauty of creation or reported other daily spiritual experiences were more likely to be in a good mood and to have social support. Individuals who used religion as a key coping strategy for their pain reported much higher levels of emotional, social and disease-related support, findings show .
"One might expect that people coping with chronic illness or chronic pain might find it difficult to maintain a positive outlook or feel connected to God or the beauty of life. The results of this study suggest otherwise," write Dr. Francis J. Keefe of Duke University Medical School in Durham, North Carolina and colleagues .
In the study, 35 people diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis were asked to keep daily diaries of their moods, religious and/or spiritual experiences, levels of pain and coping strategies .
The findings appear in the April issue of The Journal of Pain .
"Persons who reported being able to control and decrease pain using positive religious and spiritual coping strategies were less likely to experience joint pain and more likely (to experience) positive mood and higher levels of social support," Keefe revealed .
In addition, these patients used positive religious and spiritual strategies for coping with their disease more much more frequently than they used negative religious and spiritual coping strategies, for example "God is punishing me for my sins," Keefe said .
The authors stress that the types of spiritual experiences patients reported using in their diaries were not "unusual phenomena, such as seeing visions or having out of body experiences, but rather spiritual experiences that ordinary people have in the context of daily life." The study, Keefe said, suggests that understanding the daily spiritual and religious experiences of patients is important in key to understanding their experience of their disease.