Abstract

RAJA HERNANDEZ, R. et al. Influence of religious beliefs on the attitudes of health professionals (H.P.) in the face of death. Cuad. med. forense [online]. 2002, n.29, pp.21-36. ISSN 1988-611X.

Basis: Religious beliefs are psychosocial variables of great importance for a large proportion of the population, including health professionals, and consequently influence the attitude which these people have towards others. It is therefore desirable to investigate said influences, above all in critical situations of life, among which death is included because of its transcendence in the case of the terminally ill. Aims and Methodology: The analysis of the influence of religious beliefs on the attitudes of H.P. in the face of death, establishing their prevalence and correlating them with psychosocial and personality variables, with other religious aspects, as also with experience with the dying; by psychometric techniques and an inventory of religious beliefs, following an observational-transverse design, on a representative sample of the population of H.P. of a University Hospital. Results and Conclusions: -Most of the H.P. in the sample turned out to hold religious beliefs (with a moderate level of practise). -Women were more religious than men, and the young less religious than the old. -Of the two well defined groups which emerge (practising believers and non-believers on the one hand and non-practising believers , those lukewarm in their faith, agnostics, etc., on the other) those who show least anxiety in the face of death are practising believers and non-believers. -H.P. show less anxiety in general (State and Features) and low anxiety in the face of death.

Keywords : attitudes; religious beliefs; health professionals and religious beliefs; religious beliefs and death; attitudes towards death.

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