• Ana Paula Sena Lomba Vasconcelos, LucchettiAlessandra Lamas GraneroALGSchool of Medicine, Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora, Av. Eugênio do Nascimento s/no. Bairro: Dom Bosco, Juiz de Fora, 36038-330, Brazil., Ana Paula Rodrigues Cavalcanti, Simone Regina Souza da Silva Conde, Lidia Maria Gonçalves, Filipe Rodrigues do Nascimento, Ana Cláudia Santos Chazan, Rubens Lene Carvalho Tavares, da Silva EzequielOscarinaOSchool of Medicine, Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora, Av. Eugênio do Nascimento s/no. Bairro: Dom Bosco, Juiz de Fora, 36038-330, Brazil., and Giancarlo Lucchetti.
• School of Medicine, Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora, Av. Eugênio do Nascimento s/no. Bairro: Dom Bosco, Juiz de Fora, 36038-330, Brazil.
• J Gen Intern Med. 2020 Dec 1; 35 (12): 3613-3619.

ObjectivesTo assess the attitudes, knowledge, and experiences of Brazilian resident physicians regarding religiosity/spirituality (R/S), factors associated with addressing this issue, and its influence on clinical practice.MethodsWe report results of the multicenter "Spirituality in Brazilian Medical Residents" (SBRAMER) study involving 7 Brazilian university centers. The Network for Research Spirituality and Health (NERSH) scale (collecting sociodemographic data, opinions about the R/S-health interface, and respondents' R/S characteristics) and the Duke Religion Index were self-administered. Logistic regression models were constructed to determine those factors associated with residents' opinions on spirituality in clinical practice.ResultsThe sample comprised 879 resident physicians (53.5% of total) from all years of residency with 71.6% from clinical specialties. In general, the residents considered themselves spiritual and religious, despite not regularly attending religious services. Most participants believed R/S had an important influence on patient health (75.2%) and that it was appropriate to discuss these beliefs in clinical encounters with patients (77.1%), although this was not done in routine clinical practice (14.4%). The main barriers to discussing R/S were maintaining professional neutrality (31.4%), concern about offending patients (29.1%), and insufficient time (26.2%). Factors including female gender, clinical specialty (e.g., internal medicine, family medicine, psychiatry) as opposed to surgical specialty (e.g., surgery, obstetrics/gynecology, orthopedics), having had formal training on R/S, and higher levels of R/S were associated with greater discussion of and more positive opinions about R/S.ConclusionBrazilian resident physicians held that religious and spiritual beliefs can influence health, and deemed it appropriate for physicians to discuss this issue. However, lack of training was one of the main obstacles to addressing R/S issues in clinical practice. Educators should draw on these data to conduct interventions and produce content on the subject in residency programs.

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