Educação em espiritualidade na percepção de docentes em saúde de uma instituição de ensino superior do Recife

Abstract

Objective: When talking about health, studies demonstrate the importance of spirituality for its understanding and reach. In this sense, educational institutions have incorporated this theme in their training processes. This study analyzed the understanding of health professors at Faculdade Pernambucana de Saúde in Recife about the theme of religiosity and spirituality in health. Method: This is an exploratory, cross-sectional study, with quantitative methodology, carried out by applying an online semi-structured questionnaire. The link was sent by email with the Free and Informed Consent Form. The research was approved with the opinion No. 3,990,651 by the ethics committee of the researched Institution. Results: The final sample consisted of 71 teachers, which corresponded to 47.68% of the population. The study group realized that spirituality interferes a lot in the patients’ health (61.98%) and considers it important to approach it (46.48%). Most teachers consider themselves moderately qualified to address patients’ spirituality. Regarding Teaching in Health and Spirituality, 32.4% of the interviewees declared the importance of including the theme in the curricular matrix; likewise, 35.21% believed that academics should be prepared at graduation to address the spirituality of patients. Regarding the participants’ religiosity and spirituality, it was found that 69.01% of the interviewees dedicate themselves to religious activities more than once a week and 54.93% report that it is totally true that their religious belief is behind their way of to live. Conclusion: It was found that professionals have high spirituality and strive to live according to their beliefs. It is important to highlight that, however spiritualized the professional may be, there is difficulty in approaching spirituality, among the reasons: lack of theoretical knowledge and for this reason, they report the importance of including this theme in the curricular matrix of health courses.