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Mar 18, 2009 01:39 PM | 11
Terminally ill cancer patients who lean heavily on religion to deal with their disease are about three times more likely than others in their shoes to receive aggressive treatment during their final days, according to a new study.
"Patients who rely more heavily on religion to cope are more likely to receive intensive life-prolonging care at the end of life," says Andrea Phelps, a senior internal medicine resident at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Mass. and co-author of the study published online yesterday in JAMA The Journal of the American Medical Association.
Phelps and her colleagues based their finding on interviews of more than 300 terminally ill patients being treated at cancer centers (in Connecticut, Texas, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire) about their use of religion as a coping mechanism. Among their queries: whether the patients were "seeking God's love and care" or were "looking for a stronger connection with God."
All of the patients died during the course of the study; after their deaths, the researchers reviewed their medical records and interviewed doctors, nurses, family members and other caregivers to find out if during their last week of life they were placed on ventilators (breathing machines) or received other intensive life-prolonging treatments such as cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR).
Their findings: 14 percent (or 24) of the 176 so-called religious copers received life-prolonging care compared with only 4 percent (or seven) of the 167 other patients.
"Religious copers may choose aggressive therapies because they believe that God could use the therapy to provide divine healing, or they hope for a miraculous cure while intensive medical care prolongs life," the scientists speculate in the study.
Study co-author Holly Prigerson, a psychiatrist at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Mass., says previous research suggests that in addition to hiking hospital bills, heroic life-saving measures may worsen a patient's end-of-life experience.
"You're putting patients through a pretty burdensome treatment." Phelps says. "The focus is not so much on comfort, but on prolonging life." She notes that heroic life-saving procedures often cause patients additional physical and emotional pain.
Image © iStockphoto/rafalulicki
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11 Comments
Add CommentInteresting, isn't religion supposed to bring acceptance into your life? I thought the afterlife was a grand party...why are these people preaching a continuum, but so afraid to follow through? It sounds like to me the cult leader who hands out the poison but is reluctant to drink it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlso interesting is the profound results found from giving terminally ill patients psilocybin. You would expect the results from these two studies be the other way around...these people call themselves spiritualists!
I find this study quite telling about people that claim to believe in an afterlife. All their life they have put off dealing with the fact that when they die, they're done. When they reach their deathbed, they are forced to come to terms with their own mortality. Just my speculation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCould it alos been the fact that thier families could have loved these patients more. I am a Christian . People do feel good to understand that when they have died they faced the battle of thier illness or condition with bravery and diginty. They also understand they will be in heaven and not some big party that never ends with some devine being.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf they wish to prolong thier existence then who are we to judge? I would hope they would have had thier lives end with dignity if prolongation is part of it it is for some reason. My bigger concern is to prolong life in terminaly ill person for profit or gain. As Chiristian we are taught to run a good race and to finish life well. This means suffering pain loose misery is part of the deal . This runs counter culture our culture says if you just believe then you are "in " or worse still some belief sysytems that say if you do a rightous thing you will get paradise not matter the consquenses. Other say it is a down payment plan of a time share or a condo and if you make unlimited payment thru all sorts of good actions then you can buy your way in.
No ; sadly it is the living life all the way . Being a postive part of the community doing your best and just beliving. As far as extending my life if it were not going to put a burden on some one else and it would not mean prolonged suffering and I had unfinished business that I could complete then sure. Otherwise I would just live out my time.
wfitz, like a true Christian, your beliefs seems a little confusing...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"if they wish to prolong their existence then who are we to judge?"
Well, isn't that sort of playing GOD. Yes, I'm going to play that card because it was played against stem cell research. Is controling life OK if it already exists? Can medicine trump GOD if its applied to a Christian?
You mention the misguided people that think they can buy into heaven, or all the other examples you listed...not questioning your faith, but your religion says certain people can. The vatican just brought back Indulgences for people who don't have the time, or for some reason can't live a wholesome life...so you say thats wrong, but what you belong to says it is right.
http://www.motherjones.com/catholic-church/2009/02/catholic-church-brings-indulgences-back
(thats the only link I could find short notice, sorry for the brevity)
You also mention if you had unfinished business, then sure, extend your life...well that seems off the point a little. Most of these people who are terminally can't take part in any more 'business', but for some reason feel the need to NOT die/pass on.
You mention as well the fact that it is sometimes up to other relatives or children to keep the person alive...I don't know if thats the case for this study, becaues they talk about the faith of the ill patients, not the relatives, but shouldn't a loved one respect their religion and beliefs, if they are not the same themselves? Fact is, everyone is just afraid of them simply not existing...in their lives, or physically
Finally, you seem to have good faith, I am not sure if that is a good or bad thing, but there certainly is nothing wrong with it. To quote you, "Being a postive [positive] part of the community doing your best and just beliving [believing]" Aside from the belief part, that sounds an awful lot like buddhism, love everyone and such, you should check out a religion that isn't so hypocritical, I think it would suit you more...believing is just a nicer way of saying wishing.
This would be a very interesting study if it were to be done on buddhists!
I am sorry, make that very interesting to compare the results of...
strong points made. the argument many Christians would say is that it's a personal experience w/personal truths. if it helps them cope, it helps them cope, but does it? when a point of no return is reached, it seems - from my understanding of the study - that last acts of desperation, which are also a very basic/common mental state in all creatures, occurs. this end result is probably causing more mental anguish than we're lead to believe.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo big surprise here. Since there is no evidence for most religious claims, religion is mostly about believing what you want to believe. So why wouldn't a religious person believe that they will get a miraculous last-minute cure if that is what they want.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have a lot of questions about this study, were all the "religious patients" of the same belief or not. Who made the decision to apply these heroic measures such as ventilators and so on, the patients, their families or the medical staff? Were there any other differentiating characteristics between those who had minimal interventions and those who had the most?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have a very vivid memory of being a junior doctor with a patient with gastrointestinal bleeding who would not receive a transfusion because of her beliefs. She was not at all distressed but in fact seemed at peace and looking forward to being with God. The person most distressed and keenest to talk her and her family out of the decision was the consultant physician. Needless to say he did not succeed and she died peacefully, though some might say unnecessarily.
Did it ever occur to the researchers to simply ask the study recipients why they were wiling to undergo extreme medical measures?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTrue religion leads to health but when people pray to false religion/gods then they suffer before death, while dieing, after death...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBrothers, There is no other godess/gods other than just 1 Lord/Creator/The GOD/Single Supreme Being/Allah...
mediadebundked.blogspot . c o m
Check this and get to know the reality....
Lots of cynical comments about Christians not being spiritual enough to face death.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat's at issue, however, and the focus of our discussion, should be the reasons behind Christian patients requesting for more intensive life-prolonging treatment -- they didn't stop believing in God's miraculous power of healing.
Whether or not these patients kept faith in God's healing because they feared death or doubted whether there'd be such a thing as Heaven waiting for them isn't specified in the article. The answer would depend on the individuals.
But the point here is that these patients kept their faith in God til the end. Who wouldn't know that a more intensive life-prolonging treatment would be physically difficult and even financially burdensome for the families? Yet it seems they kept believing in God's miracle as any Christian would do.
The choice of prolonged treatment didn't necessarily stem from the patients. Maybe the care givers made the choice because they respect religious people more than atheists and wish to prolong their lifes. The article wasn't clear on that factor. Personally, I would assume that the anti-christ group would want to extend their lifes because they knew that there was no "over the rainbow" waiting for them.
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