Survey Finds Physicians Willing to Allow Patient's Religion to Trump Medical
Advice

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By Charnicia E. Huggins

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) Aug 09 - Many US doctors believe that the religious
convictions of their patients should outweigh their own professional advice when
it comes to making certain medical decisions.

When the patient is a child, however, a large majority of doctors say that they,
and not the child's guardian, should have the final say, regardless of the
guardian's religious beliefs.

These findings and others come from a survey of 794 physicians nationwide who
answered various questions about religion and its effect on healthcare in the
United States in an August poll.

Overall, 23% of physicians said that religion has a negative effect on
healthcare in the United States, 30% said it has a negligible effect, and 47%
said that religion has a positive effect on healthcare.

When asked how religion most affects healthcare, more than two-thirds of
respondents said it's through patients' personal decisions, and a quarter of the
group said it affects healthcare through political action. Only a few - 7% --
said that religion most affected healthcare through its influence on physicians.

"Something's happening in the power relationship between physicians and
patients," according to Dr. Arthur J. Kover, a management fellow at Yale
University's School of Management and a consultant with HCD Research, the New
Jersey-based market research company that conducted the poll.

"Until recently the power was in the hands of physicians... (but) the balance of
power has been shifting," he told Reuters Health.

The reasons for this shift may be multifaceted but Kover, also a sociologist,
said it is partly due to direct-to-consumer drug advertising and consumers'
religious beliefs. He says both are helping to move some of the power away from
doctors and into the hands of consumers.

Over half (57%) of the physicians surveyed said that a patient's religious
reason for a medical course of action should trump a doctor's treatment advice.
In contrast, the other 43% said it should not.

When it comes to making healthcare decisions for children, however, nearly 84%
of doctors agreed that a physician's medical decision should not be overridden
by the religious beliefs of a child's guardian.

The respondents were almost evenly divided about whether saving a person's life
justifies violating their religious beliefs, with 51% saying that saving a
person's life does not justify that religious violation.

Fifty-five percent of physicians surveyed said they were not concerned about the
influence of religion on healthcare in this country, however. This may be
explained by the finding that over two-thirds of doctors said a patient's
religious beliefs "infrequently" or "rarely, perhaps never" interfered with his
or her health, while 30% of doctors said that a patient's religious beliefs
often or occasionally interfered.

In other findings, when asked which particular religion has the most beneficial
or harmful effect on healthcare, more than 50% of physicians said that "no
religion has a more beneficial effect than any other" and slightly more than 25%
said "no religion has a more harmful effect than any other."
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Reuters Health Information 2005. © 2005 Reuters Ltd.







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